Toilet Cistern : Toilets Are Not All the Same

Toilets the world over are not all the same. Unless you have lived in another country for longer than a holiday, you probably will not appreciate how good it is to have your own "Throne". Here in Australia, the plumbing industry is highly regulated so that it doesn't matter whether you live in Byron Bay or Perth, Adelaide or Darwin, the one thing they all have in common is a regulated sized toilet pedestal.

Now this may sound a bit crass and I apologise in advance for that, but it is something that most people around the world never experience or think about; or if they do, certainly wouldn't speak about it.

I shall use Australia as the foundation comparison because that is the plumbing system that I grew up with and so it is the one that is considered 'normal' by me. There really is no such thing as 'normal' but in this case I am referring to it as 'normal' in the sense of being "most familiar" to me.

The toilets in the US are quite different to here in Australia and I don't just mean about the water going down in an anti-clockwise direction. I can't remember whether it did or not now and this is probably because I was in so much pain every time I stood up. And besides, the toilet bowl was always half filled with water. I have never seen so much sparkling clean water used as an "overkill" to most often a simple wet removal. The amount of water wasted per flush would have done a family of 3 all day with some flush left in the cistern.

The other problem for me with the toilets in the US and Canada was the height of the pedestals. They varied greatly everywhere. It didn't matter whether it was in a private residence or in a truck stop. The bathrooms in restaurants both handicapped and normal stalls; upmarket and diners alike, were of varied heights ranging from about 12 inches high to 'normal' Australian height of around 17 inches. People who don't have bad knees or defective hips are probably asking themselves "What difference does five inches make?"

Well, just ask anyone with defective hips and knees and they will tell you that they have probably at some stage, seriously considered calling in a crane to lift them off the 'throne' simply because they can't get up. Now if you have ever been stuck on a toilet that you can't get up from, or one that requires so much difficulty that it makes enough tears come to your eyes for a second flush, you may have some idea of what we mean.

Users of handicapped toilets where the pedestal is twelve inches or so high, should be allowed to break the Plumbers kneecaps so he can experience the difficulty of these facilities. The good news is that if he or she isn't immediately caught by a disabled person they too will live to be incapacitated and have to use these same facilities. Then they will remember this small article and wish they had installed better facilities for older and less able people.

In Malaysia and Thailand when I lived there for 3 years, the toilets in many places were of the 'squat' type with an empty plastic ice-cream container with a handle attached, to dip into a bricked-in well of water located in the corner and this was used to flush the toilet after use. The modern shopping centres and most tourist centres, had European toilets of Australian height. Back then I was much more agile and appreciated the novelty. After all, I am an Australian "bush kid" and squatting down when necessary never phased me one iota.

Now in Papua New Guinea, the "long drops" are the norm for the local settlements. All the European residences and tourist facilities are equipped with 'normal height' Australian toilets but if you were walking through some of the outlying settlements around Port Moresby, one had to be very careful where one was walking. These long drop toilets are a big hole dug into the ground with a wooden toilet platform erected over it to serve as the seat. When they were filled to capacity, the toilet was simply moved over the next hole and a light covering of soil was thrown over the used pit. Very dangerous place to walk but I loved meeting the locals and they were always so friendly. And there was definitely no water wasted there!

The worst toilet I have ever come across in my life was at a roadhouse on the Barkley Tablelands in outback Queensland. This toilet was of the 'bucket brigade' design (a big 22gallon tin with a handle), wooden plank bench seat, with a corrugated tin roof and tin sides. Even the door was corrugated iron. The afternoon sun was on it all day as there was no shade anywhere. Trees are pretty scarce out on the Barkley Tablelands and with the temperature up around 45 degrees Celsius, and being later in the day, it sure wasn't a place one had an extended stay.

Even though this outback 'loo was a good hundred and fifty yards from the roadhouse, the smell was everywhere! The wasted water there came from a tap in the ground where people had to wash and as it was 'bore' water that had been lying in pipes lying along the ground, it was hot to wash with and not wasted by being "drinkable".

Water on earth has become much too precious a commodity to have it wasted by being used to flush toilets. Yes, water closets (WC's) are familiar and very nice to have; so us 'Westerners' need to rethink our toilet cisterns. The two priorities are water conservation and an aging population. Get this right and we will all be much more comfortable in our coming years.

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