Lifting the lid on loos of the world

True story. A former work colleague - I loathe to call him my boss because he might get into trouble - saw my empty office chair and open computer screen one day so he thought he’d jump onto my Facebook account and send a cheeky post.

It read something like this: Terrible day, I went into a work meeting and low and behold, I shat myself in front of everyone #shithappens

I’d had to leave work in a hurry because I’d just found out my father had had a heart attack and I was racing to get to the hospital. 

Dad survived thankfully, but as I left intensive care, I noticed my phone had blown up with lots of comments. Among the quips were things like: 'You always had problems while we were travelling in Africa’ or 'Remember that time…' or loads of poop emojis. Only one brave soul questioned the post and suggested I might have been hacked, citing the hacker by name. Thanks, you know who you are. 

Aaaaanyway, the reason I have mentioned this is that yes, I am one of those people who often finds myself in need of a bathroom, sometimes urgently and sometimes when I am not in the best place to find a restroom. Apologies to the entire town of Quincy, California, fellow runners in the 2016 Mt Maunganui half marathon and to the entire Dahab-bound bus in 1996. Toilets are my friend, especially nice clean ones in hotel lobbies. I’ve experienced the bowels of mankind's numerous waste management systems around the world and on occasion been whacked over the head with a poo bat. There will be more Kenny references. 

So while in transit in Narita recently I joyously skipped to my favourite lav of them all. Arigato Japan for creating your marvelous technological throne. To use another Kenny toiletism: They are number one in your number twos. The seat warms your bum, there’s a keypad with various settings and ergonomic clean up options. Post doing your business - water flushes into your bits and bobs at just the right angle that if it could, your sphincter would smile. And if you are lucky, you can close your eyes while all this is happening and hear not, another stall member disposing of last night’s inflight curry, but birds at the beach accompanied by the sound of waves lapping on the shore. The only thing that could make the experience any better is if this was all happening in a scented cloud of vanilla & bergamot.

It’s about as far from the porter’s toilet I absolutely had to use in Africa where the shit and paper had amassed so much that it sat in a large pile above the floorboards in a near replica of Kilimanjaro - the summit of which we were on our way to climb. There was a smell in there, as Kenny says, that could outlast religion. I sincerely hope you aren’t eating right now.

I’m no toilet expert but my Japanese experience left me wondering if the humble New Zealand loo could be better? I mean, they’ve remained relatively the same as long as I can remember. The next time you are parked up on your own throne, ponder this: How did we land on the current design? And why do our North American friends literally drop the kids off in a ginormous bowl of water that when you flush, the tide rises up in biblical proportions stopping a hair short of the great flood? 

On a reddit thread, titled ‘Why are New Zealand toilets so small?’ An American living on our shores wondered why our Kiwi toilet seat struggled to fit a more, ahem, voluminous arse compared to his homeland. Side note. The derogatory term for Americans, Seppo, septic or septic tank, comes from Cockney rhyming slang. Yank. Toilet humour. 

But mostly on this Reddit thread, the American Kiwi talked about the Witches Kiss. I am a woman and therefore was today-years-old when I found out what this means. Look it up on the internet, you’ll be fed all sorts of goodies in your next Facebook scroll. 

We can’t do a deep dive into the bowl without mentioning a brief history of the humble toilet and I promise it will be done in the jiffiest of jiffies. All roads lead to Rome, and the hand flush dunny got its start with the Romans who used water to try and keep toilet waste off those roads. An actual flush toilet wasn’t created until the late 1500s, but it got a serious makeover in 1775 with the invention of the water closet. There was some bloke called Crapper in there too. Wonder if he was friends with the Earl of Sandwich and Elvis? As the kids say, IFKYK. The following century Thomas Twyford came up with the all-in-one porcelain toilet and is still in the business of flushing away your business.

In New Zealand, we started our toilet journey with the long drop, privy or earth closet. If you’ve ever been hiking then Department of Conversation toilets outside the wilderness huts are usually long drops.  If you're lucky, some have windows with stunning views out towards the mountains and valleys. While you’re sitting there, trying not to breathe in through your nose or mouth, swatting off flies and dealing with mosquitoes waging psychological warfare, there’s another Brucey Bonus. A little breeze blows up your jacksie from inside the long drop and you realise, all is right with this world. Just don’t look down into the poopy abyss, it’s weirdly tempting but NEVER LOOK DOWN.  Actually DOC toilets are getting a lot more sophisticated, many of their bush toilets actually flush now. 

Piped water started to be a thing in the 1860s in New Zealand but it wasn’t until the early part of the 20th century that households started installing indoor plumbing for toilets. There wasn’t exactly an immediate rush to go out and get a fully flushing indoor privy mind you. In 1945 the official census actually asked people if they had an indoor flush toilet and only 67% of households claimed to have one. They were still asking that question on the census in 1971 and remarkably we were still at only 91%. Now they ask questions in the census like, which device do you take to the toilet and how long do you spend scrolling. They don’t, but they should, it would tell a lot about bathroom behaviour. 

So the world got flush toilets, but how come they vary so wildly around the world? Why do I have to squat down testing glutes, quads and knees in some parts of Asia but then I get a bidet in France or a Flachsputer ‘pooh shelf’ in Germany that lets me inspect my stool for health reasons? More importantly, why can’t all toilets be Japanese?

To answer these important questions, I harassed the experts, actual plumbers, the people who have to sometimes deal with the shit jobs. Jordan Girdler is a co-owner and director of BC Plumbers and knows a thing or two about toilets with 25 years in the industry.  

New Zealand landed with the wash down toilet design. This system uses gravity to push water and waste down and out of the bowl through a large trap way. We adopted this system simply how we’ve adopted a lot of things in New Zealand, by taking the lead from our English forefathers, says Jordan. The Americans use a vacuum-based syphon system where water fills up the bowl and is pulled from the bowl through a narrower flush valve than our toilets. There are pros and cons for both. Skiddies on the bowl here in New Zealand are one potential drawback, but the US versions are a lot more susceptible to blockages. In case you haven’t used one of their toilets, you push the handle to flush and the bowl fills up to look like it’s going to spill over the rim. You watch in horror as all your bits and bobs slosh around in a maelstrom of terror. Will it disappear from view or flood the bathroom floor? Parking up on a US toilet, you’ll find it is a little lower to the ground and they may also use more water than our Kiwi versions, according to Jordan.

Hygiene comes up a lot, obviously. Our part of the world argues that the washdown system keeps the bowl cleaner and reduces bacterial build up. The Americans claim their sloshy fill up versions reduce smell. However, have you ever ducked into a bathroom which is primarily used by teenage children? I tell you, smells and bacterial build up is EVERYWHERE, not just in the toilet.  As a student, I used to clean the toilets after school at Westlake Girls High. You can’t unsee what goes down in school bogs. No amount of high speed hoses or disinfectant can wash away the trauma.

Behind every loo in every country is a sewerage system. Note the difference between sewage and sewerage. Sewage is literally the crap while sewerage includes the pipes and infrastructure needed to cart it off to those delightful poo ponds. Jordan says that changing to a different toilet system isn’t as simple as it might sound. The unit is one thing but you’d have to look at pipes and change the plumbing in the ground. This is where he lost me because he talked a lot about pipe thickness, valves, and inches. However, my interest was piqued when Jordan mentioned that you can actually install a Japanese toilet in New Zealand. Plenty of people do it apparently but it’s not cheap. A loo with all the Japanese bells and whistles could set you back anything from $2000 up to $8000. Someone has helpfully figured out that you spend around three years of your life on the dunny. So for the cost of a bran muffin and a strong cup of black coffee each day, you could be sitting pretty on a toilet that can do almost anything except answer today’s Wordle. 

If you want to talk about bacteria, take a gander at this European schemozzle.  Zoom past the confusing introduction that looks like bad AI meets the Tree of Life dinosaur sequence to a dad shaving in a basin sort of built into the toilet while son brushes his teeth in there too. This all-in-one wash basin toilet must surely have some bacterial issues for starters and as Kenny puts it perfectly: “It’s as silly as a bum full of smarties”. Sadly, they’ve turned off the comments to this toilet basin combo video - shame, they would have been good. 

So what have we learnt? Well, we have the lavs we have because of the English. You are going to sit on the toilet for three years of your life and it’s not that easy to change to another toilet system unless you have money and possibly have to rip up all your plumbing and replace it. Japanese toilets are the bomb. But, if there’s one takeaway from this probe into poop, it’s this - watch the movie Kenny if you haven’t already - and always lock your computer screen when you leave your desk.