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11/20/2004 Archived Entry: "World Toilet Day"

Thanks to Hugh B for this...um, interesting? enlightening? pulse-of-the-people?...item. Hugh B writes, Few are aware that today in China is a giant meeting of the World Toilet Organisation, believed a fitting venue to call attention to the Chinese planners for the upcoming Olympic Games of the need for non-smelly toilets. It is said that in China the way to find a public toilet is generally just to follow your nose, and it is also said that many would-be tourists are dissuaded from travelling to countries with a reputation for ubiquitously smelly toilets.

Enter Jack Sim and his Restroom Association of Singapore, which is undertaking to bring the affluent to confront the effluent, and educate countries on the facts they need to know. (Did you know that a typical flush toilet containing fecal matter may send bacteria several feet into the air on each flush!?)

The Chinese are listening, and so apparently are the Yanks, who started their own National Restroom Association six months ago and are participating in these 'high and low' level conversations in China this week. It is hoped that the US will have grown its awareness of toilet issues sufficiently that in two years it can be the host of the the annual conference of the World Toilet Organisation, being held today, on World Toilet Day.

Lest you think I am joking about all this, just google it up for yourself, and be sure to check the article in Asia1.com that explains the feminist (or nonfeminist) issues that arise from the Association's having put through requirements such as that there be in women's restrooms a number of toilet stalls that is not less than the sum of the urinals and toilet stalls in the men's restrooms.

Phillips Petroleum Company in the 1950's garnered significant market share by advertising and following through on its promise to provide clean rest rooms to travellers, as did McDonalds as an early entry into the fast food industry. Who knows what these well intentioned folks will end up doing to change the world?