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Toilet Replacement Lids and Seats - Celebrate World Toilet Day With This High-Tech Double Flush Bonanza - This Old Toilet 800-658-4521

November 19th, as decided by the United Nations in 2013, is World Toilet Day. The U.N. is still hoping that having added another international [insert thing here] day to the roster, it will bring awareness to the fact there are still 2.4 billion people in the world without proper sanitation. In the way of puns though, World Toilet Day has most likely wiped every other international [insert thing here] day off the calendar.

People are aware, and based on scrolling though the obvious search criteria at sites such asGoFundMe and IndieGoGo, they are trying to help. Of course, our general nature is to be ambivalent to such world issues (besides the occasional armchair activism on social media) and to focus more on our own asses — in this case, both literal and figuratively. Everybody poops. Not every one gets to do it in style.

Most of us aren’t keenly aware of what it’s like to not have a place to poop. From the worst truck stopsin America, to our standard ceramic bowls with rust stains, we are kind of spoiled. We’re also not all aware what true toilet luxury looks like. It looks like stainless steel flush against the wall, that’s what it looks like. Luxury looks like a magic dookie box that plays music while you beat box your bowels. Luxury dries and massages your backside. For unabashed bathroom luxury however, you need adiamond encrusted toilet. Just don’t try to compliment it with diamond encrusted toilet paper. Or you could just poop in bags.

Credit: Russ Oneal/GoFundMe

When you can’t afford the Rolls Royce of toilets though, there is always another way to show the world that your toilet game is at another level. Like 28-inch rims on a Buick Regal, you can compliment your toilet tech with the right upgrades. Tushy transforms your toilet into a luxury bidet (a thing that replaces the garden hose for general ass cleaning maintenance). Slap on an Autopusherand now your toilet is airport terminal quality. All you need now is the neon ground effects and you are ready to dump in style. Add a motion activated GlowBowl or the more colorful IllumiBowl and watch your house-guests dook in the dark. Well, don’t actually watch them. That’s creepy. So isteaching your cat to use the toilet.

With all this new toilet tech, you might be spending a bit more time observing your fiber loads. Sitting or squatting you are going to want to track this time. You are also going to want to be entertained. The PooTime app offers a solution for both. It’s not exactly Candy Crush, but that silly game doesn’t let you time, rate, and share your bowel buffets with an integrated PooLog. Not making a downtown disaster at home? What you need is a Tinder, but for public restrooms. This app shows you the closet public restroom along with simple rankings as to the cleanliness of such. It does not yet suggest witty things to Sharpie on the stall doors. Feeling more worldly on the porcelain throne? Slap your thumbs on Pooductive to chat and play games with fellow stall dwellers around the world. Think globally, shit locally.

If you really want to save the world and not just improve your standing among the high pressure world of bathroom tech snobbery, there are ways you can help on a micro level. Take the Sarah McLachlan-worthy plight of Jill. Jill has dropped her phone in a thrift shop as well as in the toilet. Every hour another iPhone is dropped in the toilet. Not all of them survive their harrowing journey into the murky depths. Toilets are not the enemy here, pooping shouldn’t have to be what ends a phone’s journey.

On World Toilet Day, we should take a moment to appreciate how much of our culture is dedicated to the thing that you don’t think your girlfriend does. We should consider the infrastructure dedicated to removing our feces from our general proximity, and the 2.4 billion that don’t have the simple luxury of poop displacement. We’ll worry about about the smell later. For now, just be glad you have a place to stop and plop.

Image credit Flickr User K1ng

source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/curtissilver/2015/11/18/celebrate-national-world-toilet-day-with-this-high-tech-double-flush-bonanza/

by Curtis Silver

http://www.thisoldtoilet.com

Toilet Replacement Lids and Seats - When East meets West, toilet seats take a beating - This Old Toilet 800-658-4521

There were plenty of examples from the past year of Asian tourists in Jackson Hole having trouble as a result of cross-cultural misunderstandings.

A lack of true wildlife in heavily populated Asian countries led to some visitors getting too close the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem's not-always-so-docile megafauna.

There were tales of foreign visitors filling their gasoline-powered rental cars with diesel fuel.

The scornful looks line-cutting Chinese tourists sometimes drew undoubtedly were a result of Westerners not understanding how things work when crowds gather a hemisphere away.

But perhaps the most unexpected consequence of the lingual and cultural barriers for Chinese and other Asian visitors who flocked to northwest Wyoming this year played out in the pit toilets around Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks.

"Our maintenance staff was seeing basically broken toilet seats, especially in the vault toilets," Teton park spokesman Andrew White said.

In all, about a dozen of the 42 vault toilets in Grand Teton park wound up broken this summer, he said.

What was happening, park officials discovered, is that tourists from Asian countries were squatting, with their feet on the lids, and the shuffling of legs bearing a body's full weight was causing toilets to snap where the hinges connect the lid to the bowl.

While it may sound bizarre, it's how they poop in public places back in their home countries, White told the Jackson Hole News & Guide (http://bit.ly/1SMdN7x).

"They're used to squatting on the toilets," the spokesman said. "That's a cultural expectation in China for a public restroom, which is obviously very different from our expectations."

The park worked with a Chinese student this summer, and the foreign visitor helped the park crack the toilet mystery. The broken seats were typically being found in high-use places where tour buses unload, such as Schwabachers Landing, White said.

Visitation from Asia is anticipated to keep climbing, and estimates were that around a half million Chinese and other Asians came through this year.

To plan ahead, Grand Teton's sign shop will make signs this winter that will illustrate proper use of a lidded, elevated toilet. They will be installed at all 42 vault toilets, White said.

"Obviously this is not the only things we're doing to make the parks more welcoming to international visitors," White said.

One Jackson Hole resident who has worked to smooth over the visits of Chinese to the valley wasn't surprised to learn of their propensity to squat while doing their business.

"Have you ever seen the public toilets in China?" real estate agent Bruce Simon said. "They're on the floor and you squat. And the Chinese and other Asians grew up using them, so they're comfortable."

With proper signage — and with a willingness to use Mandarin in park newsletters and food menus — Simon was confident that misunderstandings due to cultural divides could be reduced.

"The Chinese are really smart," Simon said. "They are well educated, they're eager to learn and they're really good on their mobile devices.

"It's just a matter of education," he said.

source: http://www.idahostatesman.com/news/state/idaho/article44903178.html

by Mike Koshmrl

http://www.thisoldtoilet.com

Read more here: http://www.idahostatesman.com/news/state/idaho/article44903178.html#storylink=cpy

Toilet Replacement Lids and Seats - Fun features available for new child-friendly toilet seat - This Old Toilet 800-658-4521

Courtesy of Kohler | The Transitions Family Toilet Seat from Kohler. 

Installing a new toilet seat for new bathroom users is always a good idea, especially now that today's toilet seats have more fun features available than the old standard seats. For example: You can find seats with built-in fresh air filters, grip-tight bumpers to stop seat sliding, even night light toilet seats.

For young children, there are three new toilet seat features I have worked with, and I find them very useful:

1. Slow close technology to avoid seat slamming.

2. Quick release hinges to easily remove the seat for cleaning.

3. Transition-type seats to accommodate adults and children. These new style toilet seats have double lid seating sizes, so anyone on the throne can feel like a king.

source: http://www.readingeagle.com/home-and-real-estate/article/ask-the-plumber-fun-features-available-for-new-child-friendly-toilet-seat

by Ed Del Grande

http://www.thisoldtoilet.com

Toilet Replacement Lids and Seats - Faecal attraction: toilet-themed Russian restaurant appeals to novelty diners - This Old Toilet 800-658-4521

Moscow’s Crazy Toilet Cafe features seats made from lavatories and cocktails served in mini urinals

 A bowl of mushroom soup at the Crazy Toilet Cafe. Photograph: Shaun Walker for the Guardian

Eating and defecation: two parts of life most people like to keep well segregated. Not so the owners of a new Moscow cafe, where both the interiors and the food are toilet themed.

Crazy Toilet Cafe opened on Friday in the Russian capital, and will allow patrons to eat an array of dishes that can only be described as faecal-inspired, served in toilet-themed crockery. Instead of seats, there are about 50 real toilets for guests to sit on while eating.

 The downstairs dining area at Crazy Toilet Cafe. Photograph: Shaun Walker for the Guardian

Located on Arbat Street, a touristy, pedestrianised thoroughfare lined with portrait artists, buskers and hustlers, the restaurant admits it will probably mainly draw one-time novelty visitors rather than repeat clients.

“We think people will walk past, think ‘What on Earth is that?’ and then come in to check it out,” said general manager Inga Yaroslavskaya. “It’s not everywhere you can eat good food from a toilet bowl and drink from a urinal at very reasonable prices.”

The restaurant’s Crazy Lunch menu costs 500 roubles (£5) and features three dubious courses each with a lavatorial theme: a brown and creamy mushroom soup served in a toilet bowl, followed by a swirled sausage served with three piles of steaming mashed potato. If visitors have not lost their appetite by this point, they can finish it off with a bowl of whipped chocolate ice cream.

There is no escaping the toilet theme on the drinks menu either.

“We have a great range of hot cocktails served in mini urinals,” said Yaroslavskaya. Even boring old green tea came served in a tiny toilet bowl, in which it took on a disturbing yellowish hue.

The walls are decorated with faeces-themed cartoons, but guests who need to use the toilet for real must use one of the three cubicles at the back of the restaurant. The toilet bowls used as restaurant seating have been sealed shut to prevent any over-excitable patrons taking things a bit too far.

It isn’t, however, the first toilet-themed restaurant in the world: there is a whole chain of loo-themed Modern Toilet cafes in Taiwan, but Yaroslavskaya believes Crazy Toilet Cafe is the first in Europe.

 Sausage and mash, part of the Crazy Lunch menu. Photograph: Shaun Walker for the Guardian

The cafe’s owner is Alexander Donskoi, formerly mayor of the northern Russian city of Arkhangelsk. After announcing a rather implausible presidential run in 2007, he was promptly arrested and given a three-year suspended sentence. After spending eight months in jail, he was released and opened the G-spot sex museum in Moscow. Now, he has moved on from sex to toilets.

Asked whether the cafe was aimed at genuine coprophiliacs as well as those with merely a morbid curiosity, Yaroslavskaya said the doors are open to all who behave in a civilised manner.

“It’s hard to identify them just by looking at them, so of course they are welcome if they behave normally. We opened a strange restaurant, so it’s natural that some strange people might want to come.”

source: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/30/russia-crazy-toilet-cafe-restaurant

by Shaun Walker

http://www.thisoldtoilet.com

Toilet Replacement Lids and Seats - Hospitality boosts Japan’s toilet reputation - This Old Toilet 800-658-4521

The Yomiuri Shimbun

Children at Shinseiwadai Kindergarten in Kawanishi, Hyogo Prefecture, enjoy their fun toilet.

“Wow, the cat is turning around.” “It’s always lots of fun here.” Small children frolicked with delight in a toilet at Shinseiwadai Kindergarten in Kawanishi, Hyogo Prefecture. This was understandable, because this particular toilet is as entertaining as an amusement park attraction.

Deserving of its name, the “Hidamari no Mori” (forest with sunny spots) toilet features an objet d’art in the shape of an apple tree about one meter in diameter. Its branches stretch up to the ceiling, where a blue sky has been drawn. When the kindergartners enter the space, a sensor activates a cat, elephant and giraffe and music begins playing.

Although toilets in public places in Japan are not particularly regarded as special, some have been credited as being the best in the world. Toilets filled with interesting ideas and the spirit of omotenashi hospitality have received awards from the central government, while some could even be described as fantasy worlds.

At the kindergarten, the previous toilet was regarded as “smelly, dirty and dark” by the children. Some of them were intimidated and avoided using it. To help solve the problem, the kindergarten refurbished it at a cost of ¥14 million in 2008, transforming the facility into an appealing place for children. The children are no longer reluctant to go to the toilet and use it without anxiety.

“When they go to the toilet, they tend to take their time coming back. It’s an unexpected piece of luck,” kindergarten head Kiyoshi Moritomo said with a smile.

Last month, that toilet was one of the winners of the Nihon Toire Taisho (Japan toilet grand prix) — the first toilet competition held by the Cabinet Secretariat. The competition aims to focus on toilets the design of which creates a living space comfortable for women and issues awards to excellent facilities. The event received 378 applications from across the country, with 28 of those receiving awards.

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  A toilet at Shin-Osaka Station that was designed under the concept of “comfort”

Another toilet among the winners is at Shin-Osaka Station on the Midosuji subway line. It was designed to “provide users with comfort akin to returning to a favorite place.” Its space is dotted with green and it has a powder section and a dressing room for women. Because the station is used as a transfer point to and from the Shinkansen line, the operator hopes “foreign visitors will speak about the toilet as a good memory of Osaka after returning home,” according to the employee in charge.

The Osaka Municipal Transportation Bureau, which operates the subway, is planning to refurbish toilets at 112 stations over a four-year period beginning in fiscal 2012. Toilets at other major stations have also been given themes, such as “elegant” at Umeda Station, a “toilet for mature adults” at Honmachi Station and a “luxury toilet” at Namba Station. It might be worth finding out how attractive they are in person.

The toilet competition also honored the creativity of Oita Toilennale 2015, an art festival held in Oita from July to September. Toilets at 16 locations, such as parks and shops, were decorated with the paintings and installations of artists and playwrights. Visitors were allowed not only to appreciate these works but also use most of the toilets.

Orihime Toire, a temporary toilet for emergency situations, was also awarded. It was developed mainly by female employees of Sekisui House, Ltd. and Toto Ltd., who learned from the Great East Japan Earthquake in March 2011. The toilet’s floor area is twice as large as ordinary types so that adults can use it with their children. It is also equipped with a Western-style flushing lavatory, a baby chair, ventilation equipment and an emergency alarm.

It is said that toilets represent the wealth and maturity of the country they’re in.

“In the past, toilets were dubbed as dark and dirty places in Japan. However, toilet seats with washing functions have become widely used and various other innovative devices have been invented. As a result, toilets are now a place of comfort. Japanese toilets are at the highest level in the world,” said Akio Satake, the secretary general of the Japan Toilet Association.ch

source; http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0002493570

by Mieko Furuoka/Yomiuri Shimbun

http://www.thisoldtoilet.com

Toilet Replacement Lids and Seats - Lavatory Experiments: The Latest in Toilet Tech - This Old Toilet 800-658-4521

It is perhaps not polite, in certain circles, to talk about toilets. But nevertheless they represent an area of technology that we all encounter daily. While the basics of the commode haven't changed much in recent decades, innovators are constantly chipping away at porcelain tradition, bringing high technology to bear. And in developing countries, toilets are no laughing matter. Basic sanitation continues to be an urgent public health issue in much of the world. So squeamishness be damned! We take a look at some toilet tech from around the globe.







Designers Elliott Whiteley and Gareth Humphreys came up with the Iota folding toilet concept while studying Product Design at The University of Huddersfield in England. The toilets folds itself up to flush and stays folded when not in use, conserving water and space.

It's hard to argue with this idea. The Fresh Air Plus toilet seat, installed atop your regular toilet, uses a built-in fan to whisk away air and odors before they ever leave the bowl proper. The trick? A ventilation tube that shuttles the air out of the toilet, through the wall, and ideally out of the house entirely. Don't tell the neighbors.

Plumbing manufacturer Kohler has similar ideas in mind with its Purefresh toilet seat, which debuted last year. The Purefresh seat also uses a fan system, but replaces the ventilation tube with a battery-powered carbon filter and scent pack system to deodorize air. Among your scent pack options: Garden Waterfall, Soft and Fresh Laundry, and something called Avacado Spa. You also get an LED light for nighttime excursions.




Anyone who has ever cleaned a bathroom knows that toilets really are designed for sitting. Males, quite frankly, mess up the whole system when they stand and aim. The Main Drain attempts to solve the problem by attaching an adjustable urinal to the side of your toilet. The receiving unit is designed to reduce splashing, and the articulated arm swings the entire unit out of the way when it's time to, you know, sit.




For much of the developing world, toilet technology is no joke. In 2012, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation sponsored a design contest called The Reinvent the Toilet Challenge, in an effort to improve sanitary conditions for those living without plumbing or electricity. Among the submitted designs, the Blue Diversion toilet can be fitted over existing pit latrines and uses solar-powered pumps and filters to isolate waste while recycling flush water.




Clearly, toilet technology remains an important area of research for very practical public health reasons. On the other hand, this is the 21st century, so we have to worry about weirdness, too. For instance, so-called "enhanced toilets" -- with bidet, fragrance and even music functions -- are very popular in Japan and often wired into smart home networks. As such they're technically vulnerable to, yes, hacking. Security company Trustwave recently issued an advisory on the Bluetooth-enabled Satis brand toilet: "Attackers could cause the unit to unexpectedly open/close the lid, activate bidet or air-dry functions, causing discomfort or distress to user." So, heads up on that.

source: http://news.discovery.com/tech/gear-and-gadgets/lavatory-experiments-the-latest-in-toilet-tech-150720.htm
by Glenn McDonald

http://www.thisoldtoilet.com