Toilet overflow feared on Mt. Fuji

There is a special biotoilet on Mt. Fuji that uses microorganisms to break down human waste, and it can handle 1,000 users a day. That number would be adequate for other years, but Mainichi reports that record visitor numbers this year have led to a dangerous situation:

According to the Fujiyoshida Municipal Government in Yamanashi Prefecture, the total number of climbers in July was about 99,000, about 35,000 more than last year. On July 19, the start of a three-day weekend, about 11,000 people visited the mountain, putting the number of visitors past 10,000 for first time since records began 27 years ago.

The problem toilet, located at the seventh station on Mount Fuji, was designed to handle about 1,000 users per day, but so far there have been far more users than it was designed to handle, according to an Environment Ministry official.

With the obon summer holiday period in mid-August approaching, when the influx of visitors steps up yet again, city officials fear that human waste in the toilet could overflow.

“We’re biting our nails every day,” a municipal government representative said.