The government has been telling people to flush toilet paper for 16 years but 55% of Taiwanese still dispose used toilet paper in the garbage. The government’s purpose is to improve sanitation.
In 2017, the government began implementing its National Public Restroom Improvement Plan. This included educating the public about flushing toilet paper. Only 7% of people surveyed said they regularly flushed toilet paper.
Apparently a major problem with public bathrooms is that users think they are dirty so they are unwilling to use the toilet paper provided. Instead, they use facial tissue or paper napkins etc. Unlike toilet paper, these do not dissolve and clog pipes. This causes businesses and public restrooms to post signs telling users not to put anything in the toilet.
Oh, is that what’s going on with those signs? That’d make sense. For many years I’ve thought “Really?! I’m sure the toilets can handle that.” But yeah, if people are putting, I dunno, Costco wipes down the drain or something, no wonder.
And I admit I have no idea if the standard pack of tissues I always have in a bag is toilet-safe or not. But it’s been a number of years since I’ve had to use those in a toilet in Taipei. (This is partly due to how common toilet paper has become, but perhaps more due to how rarely I now eat in local restaurants, especially the ones cheap enough to not have toilet paper in the bathroom.)
According to the article, no. Toilet paper in Taiwan is required to dissolve but tissues and other similar products are not subject to that requirement and most products do nt follow it.
Not sure how confusing it is. Like a lot of countries that were only modernized recently, macro aspects of infrastructure have been built up while other smaller issues relating to, for lack of a better term, cultural practices (like driving scooters on sidewalks, burning toxic ghost paper, or throwing shit paper in the garbage) are more difficult to resolve since traditional mindsets stubbornly refuse to change with the times and electorally sensitive politicians refuse to force them.
It’s also why I won’t use toilet papers to wipe stuff for clean anything up, because toilet papers fall apart the instant it’s wet, they’re designed to. The other problem is people are flushing other stuff, like sanitary napkins, even diapers into the toilet.
If you want people to flush it, just don’t put a trash can in the bathroom.
Maybe that’s our only hope. The manfucaturing powerhouse that made “Made in Taiwan” famous might bypass all these complications about paper, and use hydrodynamics to render the issue moot.
You’d think so, wouldn’t you… but a week ago I had some people by to fix an appliance. I let one of them (a woman) use my bathroom and she came out toilet paper in hand wondering where to put it since there is no trash can in there.
Definitely! Toilet paper is so backward anyway. This was one of the main things that sold me on my current apartment tbh (having just come from Thailand).
