Japanese Toilets

Much has been written about them and I was fascinated also by these ‘contraptions’. Google search for ‘Japanese toilets’ – 136,000 results; ‘American toilets’ – 98,100; ‘German toilets’ – 6,970.

I stayed at a friend’s and when I asked about all those buttons he told me not to worry and just showed me the button for flushing (fine for me).

 Good way to save water

However, even such a sophisticated device has something missing (or perhaps it is there and I don’t know about it): the flushing should work only if the toilet seat is down. “Dr. Gerba has also studied germ counts in the house, and by doing so, discovered the right way to flush the toilet. You should flush with the lid down If you flush with the lid up, a polluted plume of bacteria and water vapour erupts out of the flushing toilet bowl. The polluted water particles float for a few hours around your bathroom before they all land. Some of them will land on your tooth brush.” From the article Flushing Out The Truth

Also the seat should be transparent to see that everything has been flushed properly. Of course I wrote these ‘suggestions’ to Toto the largest manufacturer of washlets as they are called.