Tibet’s new revolution: world’s highest region to have cleanest toilets

The Tibet Autonomous Region has implemented a “toilet revolution” in 220 newly-built toilets after the Potala Palace led the trend.

The plan calls for building and rebuilding 1,934 toilets starting 2017 to the end of 2018 with a total area of approximately 171,000 square meters, including 1,240 that use the conventional water flushing design, news website chinanews. com reported Tuesday.

The plan is aimed at improving residents’ living standards and promoting tourism, chinanews.com reported in May 2017.

Public restrooms in Chengguan district, Lhasa have been updated several times to remove bad odor and improve privacy, said Norbu Tsering, a manager of a sanitation cleaning company.

“When I lived in the historic Barkhor area as a child, many people shared one toilet,” he said.

There are 53 at the historical area which covers 1.3 square kilometers, chinanews.com said. The toilets are within a few minutes’ walk.

The construction of new toilets improved residents’ quality of life, especially for residents of the old city area and rural areas, Penpa Lhamo, deputy head of the Tibet Academy of Social Sciences’ contemporary studies institute, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

Many attractions of Tibet are located in remote areas. So, toilets built there could greatly optimize tourists’ experience, she added.

The two original 300-year-old toilets are halfway up the palace mountain, which people called the “toilet with the world’s largest drop,” before being converted into tourist attractions.

Chinese President Xi Jinping said that China should continue to upgrade the country’s toilets as part of its “toilet revolution” aimed at developing domestic tourism and improving people’s life quality, the Xinhua News Agency reported in November 2017. China launched a toilet revolution across the country in 2015 with an aim to make such facilities cleaner and more regulated.