A restroom flush with extras
To mark World Toilet Day, China debuts a prototype public loo for the wired era.
BEIJING — Want to do more business while doing your, ahem, business? China is here to help.
“Innovation” is the buzzword of the moment in Beijing, with the government putting special emphasis on connecting every part of life to the Web as a way to boost the economy and create jobs. Now, even the humble public restroom is getting pimped for what authorities call the “Internet Plus” era.
In time for World Toilet Day on Thursday, Beijing literally rolled out a red carpet at a prototype new public loo that bears little resemblance — in sight or smell — to the often odoriferous and sometimes downright squalid facilities many inhabitants of the Chinese capital endure.
Resembling a bright, shiny mini-mart, the new facilities feature services including an ATM, a lounge with vending machines, a computerized telephone contraption for paying utility bills, plus an electric-car charging outpost and recycling receptacles for paper and plastic bottles. Enya-style tunes were piped in for ambience. And that’s before you even get to the stalls.
Each cubicle is equipped with a flat-screen television. The specially designed, environmentally conscious commodes use sink waste water for flushing, and separate urine and feces to further curb water use by 90%, designers say.
The “5th Space” public restroom in Beijing’s southern district of Fangshan is intended to be the first of many such newfangled facilities across the country, said an employee of the Beijing Environmental Health Group who was on-site Thursday. Planners expect about 2,000 flushes a day at Fangshan, with the waste stored on-site in treatment tanks and then hauled away weekly by sewage management trucks.
China’s tourism bureau said Thursday that it plans to install 57,000 new public restrooms across the nation in the next three years, though only a handful might be as high-tech as the one at Fangshan.
But the health group worker said the state-run company hopes to turn the “Internet Plus” toilets into business platforms, funding them with investment from e-commerce providers who can use them as hubs to entice people to order products online and then deliver them there, a la Amazon’s locker program. The higher level of staffing required to keep up these higher-tech toilets will also create service jobs, he said.
“Solving the human waste problem for 1.3 billion people is a major goal for the Chinese government,” said the employee, who declined to give his name because he was not sure he had permission to give media interviews. “It would be a major breakthrough for the development.”
The company’s designers, he said, had conceived various styles of the socalled 5th Space toilets, some with solar panels and others especially for rural areas, where human waste could be treated on-site and made usable as fertilizer.
The Fangshan demonstration toilet aims for a high level of service, with an attendant cleaning each stall after use. Users have their choice of traditional squat-style or Western-style sitting commodes, and a family restroom offers a changing table, a high chair to hold children while their parents go, and even a mini-toilet for toddlers being potty trained.
Still, there are aspects that foreigners might find less than cutting-edge.
For example, one must still pull toilet paper from a common roll upon entering the lavatory, necessitating careful calculations before entering the WC.
Many of those trying out the new toilets in Fangshan on Thursday said they were impressed. “It’s pretty good,” said Wu Guangxian, 68. But he wasn’t sure if the highfalutin’ amenities would stand the test of time.
“I think they need to install surveillance cameras here,” he said. “Otherwise, kids might come and destroy this place.”