Jim Eagles: My WTO seat stays vacant

I regret to say I was not able to represent New Zealand at the fourth World Toilet Summit in Beijing last month.

I presume I was notified of the conference because of my previous thoughtful articles on toilet issues for travellers.

And I admit I was quite moved by the call from the World Toilet Organisation (WTO) to join "peers" - I'm not making this up - "and contemporaries at this event of the year".

Unfortunately, the Herald decided it had other priorities which ranked ahead of reporting on the WTO's efforts to "keep our toilets clean and safe for all to use".

That's sad for two reasons.

Firstly because as Jack Sim, founding member of the WTO, said in his opening address: "Welcome to Beijing. Good toilet environment is now an exciting subject."

Just how exciting a toilet environment can be is well illustrated by a story passed on by Joan Chapple of Karaka Bay.

"Many years ago," she says, "I met up with a very proper English colleague in Italy to travel to Britain by car. We were dining one evening in a small crowded restaurant in France when he needed to go ... and was directed to a door at the back of the room.

"Imagine my surprise when, a little later, through the uproar of laughing families, I saw my hapless friend swinging from the door slowly but surely right into the restaurant, hanging by one hand from the coat-hook, the other hand reaching for trousers still around his ankles, and one very white bum bared for all to see.

"Apparently, the ancient water closet just kept flushing and then overflowing, flooding the floor. My friend simply grabbed instinctively for the hook on the door to keep his feet dry and clean, without any thought that it would swing open, let alone into the main room."

Now that's exciting toilet design.

But back to the WTO.

The second reason the conference is important is because, as Sim also said, access to hygienic toilets is an important issue. "A lot of people think I'm telling a joke, but after a while they realise how serious it is. They are tolerating smell, dirt and health problems. They are realising their lives are suffering a downgrade every time they use a toilet."

He's right of course.

Consider, for instance, the experience of John Chalmers from Hamilton. When stopping to use a Turkish cafe loo on the way to Gallipoli he "heard an ominous rumbling from below. Having witnessed something similar once before I realised this was not an earthquake but a much more scary phenomenon, so I got out of there very quickly.

"I ran out into the cafe holding my pants up because there wasn't time to do them up, which was just as well because about a second later the toilet erupted with a fountain of effluent."

If John had been a bit slower his life would certainly have suffered a downgrade.

So it's good to know the WTO is on on the case.

This organisation was launched at a summit in Singapore in 2001 and has since held conferences in Seoul, Taipei and now Beijing.

Its members include the British Toilet Association, Global Sanitet Club Finland, Gramalaya India, Russian Toilet Association, the US Paruresis Society (apparently, paruresis means shy bladder), the Society for Continence, Toilet India, and the Shanghai City Appearance and Environmental Sanitation Administrative Bureau.

Not only does the WTO hold annual conferences where peers can share the latest developments on the toilet front, it is working on an international toilet code of practice and has designated November 19 to be World Toilet Day.

For this year's toilet day, the WTO appealed to toilet users to make a special effort to follow etiquette and, in particular, to wipe seats both before and after use.

That would come as good news to John Robertson of Hillsborough, who reports that a few years ago, after 10 days in Russia using the hole-in-the-ground toilets, his group was delighted "on arriving at the Minsk Railway Station for the afternoon toilet stop, to be told that there were Western-style toilets there.

"However, much to the disappointment of the ladies in the group, the toilet seats were covered in muddy footprints. Obviously the locals always squatted when using the toilet."

Good toilet etiquette would clearly involve wiping off your bootprints after using the loo.

The WTO also urges people to report toilets that do not flush.

"If everyone joins in," says Sim, "there will be better public toilets and happier people."

Singapore, where Sim is president of the Restroom Association, is the world leader in toilet decorum and even imposes fines for not flushing.

In June it launched a Happy Toilet campaign to rate public facilities on a five-star system similar to that used for restaurants and hotels.

Patrons are being urged to comment on public facilities by email or text message. "Whether it's brickbats or bouquets," the restroom association says, "the user should provide feedback to the owner of the toilet."

But the good toilet message is spreading far beyond Singapore, and delegates to the conference were particularly flushed - sorry - with the success of their efforts in China.

The Chinese Government has spent 40 million yuan ($6.7 million) transforming toilets at tourist destinations from cesspits to flower bowls.

Travellers who have suffered the horrors of Chinese loos may remain cynical, but progress has been independently confirmed by a report from Mt Roskill resident Nancy Young, who has just returned from a three-week visit.

In most of the country, she said, there were squat toilets which "are hosed down as soon as they become free. So they're clean but we got wet shoes".

The highlight was at the Xinhaojing Hotel in Sung Tong, near Guangzhou, where her husband liked to "visit the restaurant loos because above the urinals were screens all showing current television and commercials".

But Chinese advances haven't stopped there. One of the highlights of this year's conference was the opportunity for "visitors to be arranged to see the achievements of the toilet constructions in Beijing" including a loo shaped like a giant beetle.

Progress indeed.

On the other hand, toilets can be a bit too clean.

Frances Matthews, of Wellington, reports having an allergic reaction to what may be the cleanest toilets in the world at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport.

"It is one of those toilets where you don't actually touch anything - you just approach the door and the loo starts flushing - and it is incredibly clean, hygienic and sweet-smelling.

"Unfortunately, the air was full of this really powerful air-freshener which caused me to break out in a rash."

Loosers and winners

How do New Zealand's public toilets rate?

If you have occasion to use a public convenience this summer, you can hand out a brickbat or bouquet.

Just note the toilet's location, rate it on the five-star scale, and add a brief comment on the reasons for your rating.

Email the details to Herald Travel or text to 021 632 332. We'll run the findings when the Travel section resumes.