In 2018, AtlasObscura ran a March Madness competition for the greatest mundane invention ever, would it be glass, paper, matches, the can opener, strings, etc.
What was the winner of the competition?
The sewer.
This marvel of modern technology is actually fairly ancient (Babylonians had water-flushed latrines with brick sewers), and every major society since then has been improving the system. Yes, for thousands of years we've been trying to get our waste as far away from us as possible.
Well, most of us anyway.
There are some who seem to enjoy leaving their waste in public for others to find, like in a public elevator. The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority in Boston hopes to at least stop that practice by installing urine-detecting sensors.
Small fans will be installed in the tops of elevators, which will feed air to the sensors. If they detect the hint of urine, the sensors will trigger the alarms and alert cleaning crews.
Boston thinks the system will be a good deterrent for public urination as it has been adopted in other cities like Atlanta and worked there.
However, I'm not sure if Boston's version will be as effective, since it just sends the cleaning crews a text, while the system in Atlanta activates strobe lights, sirens, an alert to the police, and the elevator becomes inoperable until a cleaning crew arrives and resets it. I'm not sure if the Atlanta elevators let the offenders out before becoming inoperable, but it would be funny if it didn't.
Another option would be to treat the deviants like cats and dogs and spray them with water, like this clever system a homeowner set up to keep the bar crowd from urinating in his yard!
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