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90 Million People Flush Toilet During SuperBowl Half-Time
Status: Undetermined
According to Scott Tissue, during the halftime of the SuperBowl (or the Big Game as they call it, to avoid infringing on the NFL's trademark) "more than 350 million gallons of water will flush through our toilets as an estimated 90 million people use their facilities. That amount of flushing equals seven minutes of water flowing over the Niagara Falls." Actually, they admit that this is a legend, but they've created a website to cash in on the legend: halftimeflush.com. However, I don't know how they arrive at the figure of 350 million gallons. (I assume they're just making up the figure of 90 million people flushing the toilet.) I thought that the average toilet uses about 2 gallons per flush. In which case, the volume of water used would be closer to 180 million gallons... and so equivalent to only about 3 1/2 minutes of water flowing over Niagara Falls.But where are they getting their facts about the volume of water flowing over Niagara? According to this site, 150,000 gallons per second flows over the American Falls, whereas 600,000 per second flows over the Canadian falls. So, assuming that they're talking about the Canadian falls, 350 million gallons of water flushed down the toilet would be equivalent to almost ten minutes of water flowing over Niagara.
Listed in chronological order. Newest comments at the end.
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If you add the american and canadian falls, the time would be closer to 7 1/2 minutes
Posted by daniel on Fri Jan 20, 2006 at 05:45 PM
Obviously, Scott or somebody else just made up the whole thing, including the numbers.
Some of the most efficient toilets need only about 1 gallon of water to flush, but some old ones use as much as 7 gallons. So it's possible that the national average is almost 4 gallons per flush, which would be about 350 million gallons for 90 million flushes.
However, I think they made up the whole thing. How can you know who's flushing at half time? Call everybody on the phone and ask them? Half the people would think it's a crank call and hang up, so you still wouldn't know.
Posted by Big Gary in Dallas, Texas, USA on Fri Jan 20, 2006 at 06:02 PM
Some of the most efficient toilets need only about 1 gallon of water to flush, but some old ones use as much as 7 gallons. So it's possible that the national average is almost 4 gallons per flush, which would be about 350 million gallons for 90 million flushes.
However, I think they made up the whole thing. How can you know who's flushing at half time? Call everybody on the phone and ask them? Half the people would think it's a crank call and hang up, so you still wouldn't know.
I heard that when the old BBC went to commercial every British person would flick on their electric tea kettles and entire sections of the power grid would fail simultaneously.
Which is probably an urban legend but it *sounds* so good.
Posted by Oberon in Utah on Sat Jan 21, 2006 at 12:00 AM
Which is probably an urban legend but it *sounds* so good.
The BBC has never run comercials.
During the wedding of Prince Charles and Diana Spencer there was a surge in demand for electricity.
Caused by kettles being turned on when they went off camera to sign bits of paper.
Posted by Peter on Sat Jan 21, 2006 at 08:16 AM
During the wedding of Prince Charles and Diana Spencer there was a surge in demand for electricity.
Caused by kettles being turned on when they went off camera to sign bits of paper.
Ise'nt "Scott" a kind of kitchen tissue/papertowel?
Posted by Lady Hedoniste in Chilling with 14 other tiny people in your head. on Sat Jan 21, 2006 at 12:40 PM
Scott makes paper towels, and also toilet paper.
Posted by Big Gary in Dallas, Texas, USA on Sat Jan 21, 2006 at 01:25 PM
The amount of water going over Niagra falls varies by quite a bit. I don't have any figures at my fingertips, but much of the water is normally diverted for power generation before it gets to the falls. Late night through early morning -when few tourists are watching- most of it is diverted.
Posted by Bob on Sat Jan 21, 2006 at 06:09 PM
our city water dept. monitors water use - half time of the big game shows the biggest spike of the year, year after year
Posted by dan in ct on Sat Jan 21, 2006 at 08:27 PM
The Eleven Cities Tour, a 120 mile skating event approx every other decade (it needs weeks of daytime freezing) starts at 06.00 in the morning. At 5.35 millions of households make coffee an turn on the telly, and at 05.55 4 million toilets flush. That was measured, not guesstimated.
Posted by Jerry S on Sun Jan 22, 2006 at 09:41 AM
The story about the english electrical grid is true, they have a special rapid-response power station to deal with spikes at half-time in football matches and other rapid surges in demand.
Posted by daniel in England on Sun Jan 22, 2006 at 04:32 PM
"...at 05.55 4 million toilets flush. That was measured, not guesstimated."
Measured how?
Surely all you could measure would be that a lot of water was being used. How do you know everybody wasn't taking showers, or washing clothes?
Posted by Big Gary in Dallas, Texas, USA on Mon Jan 23, 2006 at 02:50 PM
Measured how?
Surely all you could measure would be that a lot of water was being used. How do you know everybody wasn't taking showers, or washing clothes?
big Gary was close - he had the calulations correct. this was baesd real studies done by http://www.aquacraft.com. Also see http://www.epa.gov/watersense. trust me, i crunch the numbers
Posted by yep yep in somewhere, somestate on Mon Jan 15, 2007 at 07:54 AM
canadian volumn is measured in liters
Posted by MONTY GENTRY on Sun Feb 03, 2008 at 08:17 PM
I hate the BBC down with london up with america
Posted by Max on Wed Jul 08, 2009 at 10:59 AM
Ahhh, my two favorite things - plumbing and sports. Do the stats increase each year? I love this kind of trivia!
Posted by Your Austin Plumber in Austin, TX on Mon Dec 14, 2009 at 04:47 AM
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