Environmental and Social Aspects of Domestic Bathing - Ethical Engineering for International Development and Environmental Sustainability - page 195

Henry Perowne's musings here are drawn to a dystopian vision. Yet, if we all
give up hope, that is the likely outcome. Holding on, instead, to strategic optimism,
we can note that profound changes of human values have occurred in the past, and
often. I consider that a radical change of values - from exploitation to respectful,
modest cohabiting - is possible. One thing appears as certain as anything about the
social future can be - radical changes will happen. The ecological state of the world
will see to that (Beddington 2009 ). I fi nd bathing, and I use this term broadly in
relation to human personal cleanliness, to be an excellent specifi c topic for exposing
and analysing the issues mentioned in Sect. 2 . I have given brief accounts from this
point of view in Cottey ( 2008 , 2012 ).
Of the many weighty problems we have to consider, in seeking a just and sustain-
able world, bathing is important. It may not spring to mind immediately as such, for
three reasons. At least for most people in a rich, westernised milieu, it has been
made so simple that it can be taken for granted; advertising, with which almost the
whole world is saturated, plays upon our fantasies and often trivialises our real
experiences; and issues of physicality keep bathing partly in a private domain, liter-
ally in the closet. A way of thinking, congenial to engineers, that bypasses these
obstacles is to think outward and place cleansing in the context of nonequilibrium
thermodynamics. Not only humans but all of life is a complex quasi-stable state
which is maintained away from equilibrium by many activities, all of which are
powered by heat engines of one kind or another (thermochemical, thermo-
mechanical, etc.). All of these engines use available energy that derives ultimately
from the nonequilibrium state of the universe, the most important for us being the
fl ux of sunlight upon the earth. Others are the nonequilibrium distribution of the
nuclides, which makes nuclear power possible, and the nonequilibrium confi gura-
tion of local mass (earth-moon system) which makes tidal power possible.
Cleansing This, is one of the many activities that living organisms perform. They
may perform it consciously and deliberately (as do humans and the higher animals),
or they may have evolved in such a way that it happens naturally and without appar-
ent effort (e.g. as with worms). The skin, or outer surface, of a living organism is
complex and serves several functions. This limits the cleansing process. It must not
be harsh and thereby do harm. Looking at the matter from this point, we see that
many cleansing processes in nature are remarkably effi cient, as in the case of the
worm. Likewise remarkable is the lotus effect , an informal name given to the gen-
eral phenomenon of superhydrophobicity. The surface of lotus leaves repels water
unusually strongly, and particles of dirt are carried away within the water droplets.
This is only the most spectacular of self-cleaning processes widespread in nature. In
general, all living organisms in an environment to which they are well adapted are,
one might say by defi nition , clean. Plants toil not, either to be clean or to grow,
though they do what they have to. The lotus effect is now understood at the micro-
physical scale, and many engineering applications, including the production of self-
cleaning surfaces, are in place and under development (Forbes 2008 ).
These remarks are intended to expand our imaginations as to what may be pos-
sible in the future (Neville-Sington and Sington 1993 ). Already much has been