Toilet Paper: Toilet or Can?

Are you sure it wasn’t just a hole in the ground? These are also not composters.

If part of the “procedure” doesn’t involve chucking a bucket full of earth, leaves, whatever down the hole, it’s not a composter. It’s just a pit latrine. And it will reek.

AFAIK it’s really only the Swedes who actually understand how the technology works and how to engineer it correctly for a mass market.

The problem with Finley’s ideal solutions (for everything) is that he will pitch his ideas and not a damn person will listen to him. So instead of improving the imperfect system absolutely nothing will change. This has nothing to with thinking that whatever I grew up with is the best because I don’t know better. It’s about the reality of what can be done and finley seems quite happy to just rant about ideal solutions (for everything) instead of trying to make changes (some would be significant changes) that actually have a chance of being implemented.

FWIW I have been in a few self composting toilets that were fine. As a first step it would be great to see the NPS in Taiwan start using these in parks where otherwise shit is being flushed right into that lovely stream. I can think of dozens of places that would see a big benefit immediately from something like this.

Abacus, I don’t get what you’re trying to say. First you assert that it’s completely pointless promoting ideal solutions because nobody gives a shit, then in the next breath you say that these solutions actually work fine and Taiwan could roll them out on a small scale and see how it goes.

I’m well aware people don’t give a shit, or at least aren’t prepared to junk everythink they’ve ever known and start again from scratch. I don’t really care if nobody “listens”. All I’m bothered about is that there are enough to make a profitable business from selling stuff like this. My experiences so far suggest that there are. All technology works this way: there are the early adopters, and (if it actually works, and is useful) the product spreads to others.

Anyway, I wasn’t suggesting people should dig up everything they’ve ever done and install something different. How is that gonna work? I completely agree that you’d want to start small - on new projects, typically, where there’s a choice of which way to go - and work up from there. Putting them in parks would be a perfect first step. As for the rest, things naturally fail and get worn out, so all you need to do is replace old stuff with better stuff, instead of endlessly perpetuating a cycle of inefficiency, pollution, and expense.

You seem to be against upgrading the current sewage treatment system because you have ranted endlessly just how silly the whole system is in the first place. You might not like this current system (even though you use it) but at a minimum the system needs some sort of sewage treatment.

A nearly zero % of people are going to voluntarily adopt this and nobody is going to set this up in new construction if the flush alternative is available. Despite any mountains of data that you can supply self composting is going to be limited to remote areas unless something really big changes. A big change would be an extremely high level of environmentalism that sweeps through a country which forces municipalities to pay millions to adequately dispose of sewage or adopt alternative means for the entire municipality. that isn’t the Taiwan that we currently live in.

Abacus, I think we’re just talking past each other.

The OP (or rather, the quoted article) was suggesting that people in Taiwan should all be flushing their toilet paper. In fact, the authorities’ decision to suggest people DON’T do this is a perfectly rational response to reality:

  1. Taiwan has no functioning sewage processing and
  2. Has no intention of implementing one in the near future.

They would therefore be a big problem with visible ‘floaters’ (as well as less visible ones) if people started chucking toilet paper in the toilet.

I’m against ‘upgrading’ the sewage system because it’s money being chucked down the toilet, literally. They could make the entire problem go away by changing the building codes. I know - they won’t. Other countries will, and do. Corporations will. Even the Philippines, the poster kid for backward shitholes, lists composting toilets as a valid method on the building compliance checklist. Both the composting toilet and the flush toilet were originally commercial products back in the 18th century. The only reason the flush toilet succeeded is because the gov’t decided to throw vast sums of taxpayer’s money into making it work, and that was partly because the inventor of the composter didn’t bother to improve and refine his product. It could have easily gone the other way, and countries that don’t have either sort have an opportunity to do it right. Taiwan, I concede, is probably not going to be one of them.

As for the cost issue, composters are inherently cheaper to build and operate than a combined-sewer system. In an economy that doesn’t (or can’t) subsidise piped sewage, operating a commercial composting infrastructure could even be profitable; municipalities wouldn’t have any cost burden because the cost of toilets and composting infrastructure would be imposed on building companies (who, at the moment, get a free ride). Transport and sale of compost could probably be auctioned off as a profitable business; it would probably end up being used to grow trees for TP, but that’s OK.

RADIOLAB have an interesting show on a sewage treatment plant in Manhattan. I listened to it a few months back and consequently don’t remember the details. Something like: the city introduced a regulation requiring the treated sewage be used rather than just dumped at sea; however, they couldn’t even give it away, despite it making great fertilizer; after a lot of effort they finally found some farmers out west who were willing to take it, with the city paying for its transport, by rail; eventually, the program was scrapped - it was seen as a waste of money, paying so much to transport it - and they went back to dumping it out at sea.

http://www.radiolab.org/story/poop-train/

I suppose when treated sewage is cheaper than other forms of fertilizer - or it provides cheaper heating, or cheaper something - then cities will stop dumping it. :idunno:

That’s pretty much the size of it. The problem you’ve got is that governments subsidize both pollution and fertilizer, so something that ought to have economic value … doesn’t. Mined phosphorus is projected to become uneconomic within 30 years in the US (that’s a government estimate, not some left-wing think-tank). At that point, somebody might finally think, hm, maybe it’s not such a great idea to throw a non-renewable resource in the sea.

Until then, people will continue to not give a shit, and governments will continue to subsidize their propensity to do so. :idunno:

Incidentally, sewage doesn’t make ‘great fertilizer’. It’s toxic. Several experiments have demonstrated that if you put it on crops for more than a few years, you’ll quickly render the soil useless. So humanity takes a viable recyclable resource (excrement), mixes it up in the combined sewer with industrial effluent, road runoff, etc, then adds all sorts of other stuff at the treatment plant to kill the bacteria, and produces tonnes of biohazard waste. This makes me angry. I understand Abacus’s position - chabuduo is the best we can expect, so let’s at least ask for chabuduo that looks like it works. But it still makes me angry. I wish I could just roll through life in blissful ignorance assuming the men in grey suits will make everything turn out all right in the end, but I can’t.

[quote=“Deuce Dropper”]
My advice, get a Thailand style asshose installed (a shuaydian can do this for under $500), then spray your ass before you wipe. You’ll feel cleaner, you’ll save your plumbing, you’ll save on toilet paper, mother nature will be happy, and it will increase the likelihood of someone giving you a rim job.

Win Win![/quote]

I am interested in installing it. Where can I get more information about it? I don’t know what shuaydian is… If there is a website, that would be nice.

[quote=“Icon”]Mr. Fix a lot: 水電 han (forgot this one)[/quote] forumosa.com/taiwan/viewtopi … 7#p1339937

I guess a shuidian (水電, “water” + “electricity”) guy is a handyman who does plumbing and electrical stuff.

I’ve flushed away the toilet paper quite happily in both my apartments, sans problème. First was a 5th floor rooftop, current is 4th floor. Both walk-ups, older buildings. Meh. I’m not into collecting dirty TP. The bidets are a good middle ground - didn’t realize they were so cheap to hook up!

We had one of those fancy Japanese washer/dryer combo toilet seats installed back in the U.S. (my wife discovered it’s usefulness after our second child was born, and in turn I became a fan). Now that I’ve read how easy it is to install an “asshose” here, I’m getting one! I’m guessing, though, it won’t have warm water like the Japanese one we had, but oh well.

I always throw the toilet paper into the toilet. Anything else is non-hygienic.

One of the reasons that toilets get clogged is because they’re using really crappy plumbing. Even in new buildings, they use PVC tubes 10 cm in diameter, instead of the 15cm plumbing we are forced to use in Spain.

Build cheap, sell expensive, maximize profit … don’t think about problems.

Throw the filthy shitwipes in the crapper and flush them. If the pipes can’t handle the filth they were designed to expunge, let them be replaced by pipes that can.

I’ve been working to improve Taiwan’s plumbing for a decade. Revolutions need doers, not namby-pamby, go along with the crowd and throw your crap-encrusted-paper-into-the-bin kind of folks.

If you can build and maintain 3 nuclear power stations and want to build a fourth, you should be able to handle a basic poo and paper sewage treatment system.

When I worked at the Government Information Office, this one female colleague from Texas used to complain that Taiwanese women didn’t know where their a@@holes were. LOL. You have to post stronger signs.

Little-known fact: Japanese toilet manufacturer Toto actually spent a lot of time and money measuring exactly where people’s assholes were, so that they could develop a more accurate built-in spray jet. Sadly, the results are a trade secret, so Taiwanese women who can’t (literally) find their ass with both hands and a flashlight will continue to splatter the porcelain, the floor, walls, etc.

OP: how about just taking lots of pictures of floating logs, making a little collage, and posting a nice colour print on the wall. Words unnecessary, one would hope.

I agree with the OP, but with the following caveat:

If I flush three times and it still doesn’t go down, it’s the problem of the maintenance personnel. They need to install better toilets.

Little-known fact: Japanese toilet manufacturer Toto actually spent a lot of time and money measuring exactly where people’s assholes were, so that they could develop a more accurate built-in spray jet. Sadly, the results are a trade secret, so Taiwanese women who can’t (literally) find their ass with both hands and a flashlight will continue to splatter the porcelain, the floor, walls, etc.

OP: how about just taking lots of pictures of floating logs, making a little collage, and posting a nice colour print on the wall. Words unnecessary, one would hope.[/quote]

Dammit, my apartment has an INAX toilet, that must be why it sprays my left cheek every time!

Btw, I am talking about western style bathroom.

That sounds GRIM mate.

I’m lucky, my office is fairly small and the toilet is always really clean, a cleaner comes in twice a week, and you can flush the paper.