World's tallest building is kinda crappy

[marmar]

There are lots of noteworthy facts about Dubai’s Burj Khalifa: it’s the tallest building in the world and the tallest free-standing structure in the world, and it contains an elevator that travels the longest distance in the world, to name a few. But despite all these impressive accomplishments, the Burj Khalifa has a major problem.

A poop problem.

In an interview with “Fresh Air’s” Terry Gross last month, author Kate Ascher discussed her recently published book on the skyscraper (via Boing Boing):

TERRY GROSS: Right. So you know, you write that in Dubai they don’t have, like, a sewage infrastructure to support high-rises like this one. So what do they do with the sewage?

KATE ASCHER: A variety of buildings there, some can access a municipal system but many of them actually use trucks to take the sewage out of individual buildings and then they wait on a queue to put it into a waste water treatment plant. So it’s a fairly primitive system.

GROSS: Well, these trucks can wait for hours and hours on line.

ASCHER: That’s right. I’m told they can wait up to 24 hours before they get to the head of the queue. Now, there is a municipal system that is being invested in and I assume will connect all of these tall buildings in some point in the near future, but they’re certainly not alone. In India many buildings are responsible for providing their own water and their own waste water removal. ..................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.salon.com/2012/12/29/worlds_tallest_and_smelliest_building/

[Gman]

1. I certainly didn't expect that.

[DrDan]

2. not a unique solution in the ME

I lived in Saudi for 4 years. Many trees would be planted in the medians - for example along the 20-mile (or so) highway to the Riyadh airport. The only way to keep these trees living was to deliver water via water trucks.