yeah it's still very common, see it all over Euro is very practical, americans have such an aversion to normal functions, it's just a little water people, when u gotta to go, u gotta go! this is the greenest way to handle human waste ever, it adds nitrogen to the ecosystem.I was a high school exchange student in Germany in my teens. On several organized school trips, the chartered bus would pull over in a wooded area for the kids to either go to the bathroom in the woods or just to stretch their legs. It happened more than once during my stay.