A quick overview of the issues, laws and regulations to the water closet on-board.

After you flush the toilet on your boat, what happens to the waste? It goes to a Marine Sanitation Device (MSD) for further processing. All boats with a permanently installed toilet are required to have a Type I, II, or III Marine Sanitation Device on board to collect and process the waste products.

Time to learn some more nautical-speak—the bathroom on a boat is called the head, the toilet on a boat is also called the head. The head facilities on a boat range from simple to super. On one end of the spectrum, you can take a five-gallon plastic bucket, put a trash bag inside and a toilet seat on top—and you have an inexpensive, portable head.