Who Gives A Crap Toilet Paper Review?

Who Gives A Crap Toilet Paper Review
The Bottom Line – Ultimately, I’ve enjoyed my experience with Who Gives A Crap, The toilet paper is sturdy, sustainable, and beautiful. You’ll need a little extra storage space for the bulk orders, but it’s manageable and would be very excellent for someone with larger space and/or a family.

Who Gives A Crap is a convenient brand that does good—and has a good sense of humor while doing it.
I’ve even strangely enjoyed the newsletters I’ve received from the brand since subscribing (so much toilet humor, hah).
It makes me excited about expanding my subscription into ordering paper towels from Who Gives A Crap as well (because not every mess can be cleaned with a reusable, yuck).

Who Gives A Crap is a convenient brand that does good and has a good sense of humor while doing it. Wishing happy wiping to all, and to all a clean bum! Use code THEGOODTRADE10 to get $10 off orders over $47 through May 5th, 2022. First-time customers only.

Is Who Gives A Crap made in China?

Products – WGAC toilet paper is created from recycled paper, and each roll is also individually wrapped in recycled paper. Since 2016, WGAC also sell toilet paper created from bamboo, Its toilet paper products are manufactured in China,

Is Who Gives A Crap toilet paper septic safe?

Who Gives A Crap + Good Time Flush Poverty Down the Loo At present, 40% of the world’s population don’t have access to a toilet. This is a leading contributor to endemic poverty and is a major drag on economic growth in some of the world’s poorest countries.

Diarrhoea related illnesses fill over half sub-Saharan African hospital beds and globally kill over 2,000 children under 5 every day. We think that’s pretty crap. That’s why we give 50% of our profits to WaterAid to build toilets and improve sanitation in the developing world. Make Every Wipe Count We believe that the need to wipe shouldn’t mean we wipe out the planet.

That’s why we only use 100% recycled post consumer waste fibres in our toilet paper. It saves on trees, water and landfill which means you’re doing your bit to help keep our planet great. Be Good for Your Bum We don’t use any chlorine, inks, dyes or weird perfumes in our toilet paper.

Who Gives A Crap sustainability rating?

Are Who Gives a Crap eco-friendly? – Not only do they donate a huge amount of their profits compared to almost every other company in the world, when they launched they wanted to be sustainable too. And they seem to be doing pretty well in that regard.

B Corp certified Carbon neutral shipping Bamboo is a very sustainable material 100% recycled toilet paper No inks, dyes or scents used in the toilet rolls Soy based ink on packaging (vegan friendly) Packaging is almost all recyclable or compostable

Who Gives a Crap are B Corp™ certified. They have an overall score of 108.9; you have to get a score of 80 or over to be certified. To put that into context the average company would score 50. This just shows that overall the company is deemed to have high standards of social and environmental impact.

Is recycled toilet paper good or bad?

Carbon emissions – Recycled toilet paper produces around 30% fewer carbon emissions than traditional loo roll, purely because it requires less water and energy and creates less air and water pollution. Bamboo toilet paper goes even further though, producing a massive 65% less carbon than regular toilet paper.

Why does China buy waste?

Impact – Since 1992, China has received 106 million tons of plastic waste, half of the world’s plastic waste imports. After the introduction of the policy, China’s imports of plastic waste saw a sharp drop of 99% while the imports of mixed paper have fallen by a third, and imports of aluminum and glass waste have been less affected.

In the meantime, many recycling projects abandoned the separation of recyclables when they decided to just dispose of the waste into the same box.
This had increased the risk of contamination from food and waste and resulted in a large amount of waste that cannot be reprocessed.
China’s economy was highly associated with imported waste since a few decades ago.

This rapidly growing economy requires a lot of raw materials to sustain. This is not due to China’s technology and ability to recycle these waste but because China’s economy is based high on the manufacturing sector which has a high demand for raw materials.

Therefore, importing wastes from other countries is actually benefiting China itself.
Due to China’s large manufacturing industry, it is profitable for China to import waste from other countries.
Although the cost of importing waste is only a little bit lower, due to the large quantities of output these factories produce, these small costs add up, yielding a higher return for the industry.

The waste import ban in one hand slowly changes China’s natural environment (both cons and pros), in another hand influence the global waste exporting countries. Due to the massive amount of wastes these countries import, countries who import waste must develop and better their technology around waste disposal in order to not let these waste cause adverse effects on the environment.

Also, after the ban policy, the not accepted wastes force the waste exporting countries to develop better technology to deal with their own domestic wastes.
Unexpected, the restricted policy started to influence the recycle industries and raw materials supply industries in China.
The raw materials supply faces a gap of millions of tons without the imported waste from foreign countries.

The restriction of recycling materials, which banned by China, will eventually forces the industries to use the raw materials. However, using the recycling materials to produce same amount of products are much more energy efficient and material saving than adopting raw materials, which presumably not a good news for the environment.

The consequences of insufficient supply of recycling materials are serious, agents have to find materials from other places, for example, perhaps cutting down trees to produce paper. It is also very harmful to the environment. With the comprehensive recovery of the national economy, the rapid improvement of people’s quality of life, and the acceleration of urbanization, major changes have taken place in the generation and treatment of urban domestic waste in China.

A waste problem miniature is about the cemetery of ” share bicycle ” in China which thousands of bikes were discarded in dumping grounds. Also, the rise of the takeaway industry causes 60 million takeaway food containers thrown out across the country.

There are hundreds of million tons of wastes produced domestically every year. However, the garbage disposal capacity of most cities has not kept up with the growth rate of garbage. Statistics show that about 40% of the total waste in the country has not been processed centrally. In Japan, waste management is relatively mature than other Asian countries, especially for waste sorting.

However, Japan owns the most waste incinerators in the world, the consequence is a lot of air pollution in Japan. The surrounding less developed Asian, for example, Indonesia, facing the waste crisis from the land and ocean. The ocean waste is a global problem, countless marine animals died for eating the plastic products every year.

Is bamboo toilet paper environmentally friendly?

Is Bamboo Toilet Paper Eco-Friendly? – Generally speaking, bamboo products are some of the most eco-friendly products around. Not only are they made of sustainable materials, but they break down fully and quickly, as well. Bamboo toilet paper is no different.

Does bamboo toilet paper break down?

Bamboo is 100% biodegradable – Just like regular toilet paper made from trees, bamboo is biodegradable. This means that it is 100% capable of being decomposed by other living organisms and therefore completely avoids pollution. The bamboo toilet paper will naturally start to decompose the minute you flush it down the toilet and thus not block the drains.

What happens if you use non septic safe toilet paper?

Septic-Safe Toilet Paper: What Does it Really Mean? Have you thought about what happens to your toilet paper once you’ve flushed? If not, let us break it down for you! Most people do not think about their septic systems until it costs them something, but purchasing septic-safe toilet paper is one of the best preemptive measures for ensuring that your septic systems stay unclogged, and the septic bills do not skyrocket.

Who is the most sustainable company?

The Clorox Company Named Barron’s Most Sustainable U.S. Company.

Is bath tissue toilet paper?

by Venus Sanders | Trending News & Current Events Who Gives A Crap Toilet Paper Review It is not abnormal for someone to question the difference between ‘bath tissue’ and ‘toilet paper’if let’s say, there is a difference at all between the two. We see the product derived from the 14th century, as early as 1393 when an annual supply of 720,000 sheets of toilet paper was produced for general consumption.

The Chinese led this newfound invention as they do not wash with water after they have done their necessities, but they wipe themselves with paper. During this time elsewhere, wealthy people wiped themselves with wool, lace or hemp. The less fortunate, however, used their hand, defecating into rivers or cleaning themselves with various materials such as rags, wood shavings, leaves, grass, hay, stones, sand, moss, water, snow, ferns, plant husks, fruit skins, seashells, or corncobs according to sources.

In other words, for quite some time the very use of toilet paper or bath tissue was considered a luxury. Related articles: What is a Balanced Lifestyle and Why is it Important? Related articles: Signs from the Universe That Someone is Thinking About You The words are used interchangeably as they both serve the same function.

Some refer to toilet tissue as bath tissue considering it is something that is kept in their bathroom.
The obvious function of bath tissue aka toilet paper is for hygienic purposes.
The basic types of bath tissue are made of either recycled paper or virgin paper.
Virgin paper is made of wood pulp.
Recycled paper is made from used papers and various types and takes 50% less energy to produce.

Typically, those of the recycled nature are not as soft and are of lower grade. But that is not the case for Bamboo toilet paper. After testing one of our recommended toilet rolls, one user wrote, “Upon opening the package and feeling the product for the first time I was pleasantly surprised. It was softer and felt thicker than I’d anticipated.” Related articles: How to Break Monotony in a Relationship Related articles: Choosing the Perfect Candle Gift Set to Highlight Special Events Modern toilet paper inventor Joseph Gayetty is widely responsible for making toilet paper commercially available in the United States.

With that came great responsibility and the need for fast production versus natural toilet paper. But what was the process? The manufacturing of this product has a long period of refinement, considering that in the late 1930s, a selling point was that toilet paper would now be ‘splinter free’. The adoption of flush toilet paper increased as the heavier paper was prone to clogging the toilet preventing sewer gasses from escaping and thus a softer, 2-ply option was introduced in 1942 by St.

Andrew Mills, It is from here that another product was born: wet wipes for after defecation and to be used for women during menstruation. Since then, toilet paper has grown worldwide and is available in several types of paper, a variety of patterns, decorations, and textures and it may be moistened or perfumed.

Although some fragrances can cause problems for users who are allergic to perfumes.
To keep their products safe, Bamboo Essentials are perfume-free and sustainable.
A good thing to note is that natural toilet paper is brown and is bleached to become white.
Reel Paper have been working with manufacturers to bring you sustainable toilet paper that is free from all dyes but remains soft and perfect for everyday use.

For now, most medical experts do advise men and women to use only white paper that is not treated with additional or unnecessary materials or chemicals. Who Gives A Crap Toilet Paper Review If you’re interested in learning more about facial tissue – which can also cause some confusion among its users – it is safe to say the main distinction is that facial tissue is typically softer because the user is touching some area of their face with it and because the nerve ending in the face can feel the difference – more so when you have a cold, allergies and are putting the paper to use several times an hour.

Can toilet paper be used for this as well? Yes.2 ply and 3 ply are usually the better options because they are less likely to break apart during use.
What’s the takeaway? There is no difference between the two terms.
But what’s important to note is how we can make environmentally conscious decisions.
One tree produces about 800 rolls of toilet paper and about 83 million rolls are produced daily making the global toilet paper consumption 27,000 trees daily.

Let’s work together to save the planet.

Where do ESG ratings come from?

Key Takeaways –

An ESG score is an evaluation of an organization’s performance against various sustainability metrics (related to either environmental, social, or governance issues). ESG scores are generated by rating platforms where analysts evaluate corporate disclosures, conduct management interviews, and review publicly available information about an organization to provide an objective rating of the organization’s performance. Scores are used differently by different stakeholders (i.e., investors vs. employees), and rating platforms have evolved to reflect this variety of use cases.

Why we should not waste tissue paper?

The Environmental Impact of Tissue Paper We may be wondering whether the tissue paper has an environmental impact or not, the answer is Yes. Though the tissue papers are made from virgin pulp and recycled waste paper, the fact is that the production of the tissue papers from virgin pulp emits 30% more greenhouse gases when recycled waste paper is used.

It is estimated that approx.140 liters of water are needed to manufacture a single roll of toilet paper. Worsely, chlorine is used to bleach the pulp to look white while other chemicals are added to make it soft and this all leads local water bodies to be polluted. Also, the question is where does virgin pulp come from? The answer is all the way from the forest by chopping the trees and transportation also emits carbon dioxide gas.

A study states that most people use 1-2 rolls of toilet paper per week. Your two rolls a week habit support an industry worth $30 billion worldwide and indirectly we flush 27,000 trees down the drain every day. So, should we stop using tissue papers, toilet papers, and hankies? There is no appropriate answer for this, as the usage depends on the habits and lifestyle.

Is it better for the environment to flush toilet paper?

Is it better to flush or throw away toilet paper? ROCKFORD, Ill. (WTVO) — If you’re trying to lead an eco-friendly and sustainable lifestyle, and wish to leave the minimum evidence that you ever walked on Planet Earth, you may have asked yourself, which is better for the environment: flushing or throwing away my toilet paper? In, for instance, throwing used toilet paper in the trashcan may be thought of as the proper method of disposal, but in the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency encourages Americans to,

When flushed, according to, 95% of the toilet paper dissolves in water, leaving 5% to become sludge in sewage treatment plants, releasing carbon dioxide which is a greenhouse gas.
However, toilet paper that is thrown away in a trash can ends up in a landfill, which produces methane gas, which is more harmful than carbon dioxide.

Additionally, toilet paper can take years to break down and decompose. So, flushing is the more environmentally friendly option. You could try an alternative solution, which may be using recycled toilet paper if you can that is BPA-free, chlorine-free, 100% recycled, and unbleached.

Recycled toilet paper has a when flushed. Conversely,, a device that fits onto the toilet and shoots a stream of water onto your sensitive areas. You can then dry the area with a single piece of toilet paper. Or, better yet, wipe the area with your hands, and then with soap and water for 30 seconds before drying them with a reusable towel (this is considered proper hygiene for however you use the restroom).

However, using a Bidet is also, as gastroenterologist Dr. Christine Lee warns, “If bacteria or virus particles get into the water tank or on the nozzle, everyone who uses the bidet could be exposed to those germs.” The most environmentally friendly option is switching to cloth toilet paper.

Is there a sustainable toilet paper?

Good news about toilet paper – Recycled toilet paper is made from 100% post-consumer waste, such as textbooks and office paper. Using recycled paper means fewer trees are cut down, leaving them in the ground to keep our air clean, provide homes for animals and protect soil from erosion.

Is garlic grown in human waste?

It is possible that sewage is used as fertilizer, as it is in many parts of the world although there is no evidence that garlic in China is fertilized in this fashion. In any case, there is no problem with this, human waste is as effective a fertilizer as is animal waste.

Is it illegal to waste food in China?

35 million tonnes of food in China is wasted each year, with over half of it attributing to the dumping of excess food upon consumption. The Chinese government has been working hard to combat this growing environmental problem, and so far, they have come up with quite some creative policies.

So, what is the current state of food waste in China and how effective are its anti-food waste policies and law? — What is Food Waste? Food waste refers to food that is intended for human consumption that is lost anywhere across the supply chain, from farm stage to harvest to households. Globally, about one third of global food supplies are wasted, or 2.5 billion tonnes, every year, while more than 800 million people face hunger and food insecurity.

The global food demand not only has a huge impact on the use of land, natural resources, and biodiversity, food waste also accounts for a third of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions and generates 8% of greenhouse gases annually – when food decomposes in landfills, it releases a potent greenhouse gas called methane.

While countries such as the United States and Australia are some of the world’s biggest culprits of food waste, the situation in China should not be swept under the rug either. Causes of Food Waste in China More than 35 million tonnes of food – equivalent to about 6% of the country’s total food production – are lost or wasted in China annually, an amount which is enough to feed 30 to 50 million people, according to an investigation conducted by the Institute of Geographic and National Resources Research and the World Wide Fund for Nature.

About half of that food waste – between 17 and 18 million tonnes annually – is wasted at the final stage of the supply chain: at retail or consumption, meaning that people are literally throwing ready-made and fully-cooked food. It is part of Chinese culture that when eating out, hosts traditionally order more food rather than less to show hospitality to their guests.

The more food left uneaten, the more hospitable the host seems.
An investigation conducted in 2018 estimated that the amount of food wasted in Chinese cities at 93 grams per person per meal, which is around 12% of food that was served.
And for large banquets, the situation is even more severe.
More than one-third of the food is simply dumped.

Other than these deeply-rooted traditions, there are also emerging new trends leading to excess food waste. “Mukbang” is a social media phenomenon that began in South Korea and became increasingly popular and profitable in China as well. Media personalities and social media influencers livestream videos of themselves binge-eating, and if they can manage to force a certain amount of food into their stomachs, they are crowned “big stomach kings”.

Many video bloggers are gaining fame and support from their fans through these types of video content and exposure, and attracting even more into following this wasteful trend. As a result, significantly more quantities of food are being left uneaten or even regurgitated, leading to excess food waste.

You might also like: How Does Food Waste Affect the Environment The Clean Plate Campaign In August 2020, the Chinese President Xi Jinping launched a “Clean Plate” campaign, which aims to stop people from wasting food and remind Chinese residents that they “should still maintain a sense of crisis about food security”.

It is unsurprising, considering how food security has always been an important strategic objective of China’s national policy and how its food supply has been greatly disturbed back in 2020: mass flash floods damaging the summer harvest (which also left dozens dead), its ongoing trade war with the US leading to a great decline of the US-imported food, and the COVID-19 pandemic limiting the amount of imported food from across the globe.

Even though the food supply of China is relatively steady in recent years in which China has managed to produce enough food to reach a certain level of food security, an estimate suggests China may still face a food shortage of about 130 million tons by 2025 as its domestic farming population continues to shrink, possibly due to more people moving into urban areas.

Unfortunately, there’s been no evidence that this campaign had any real impact on reducing national food waste in China.
The campaign only encouraged people to stop wasting food, but it lacked concrete control or regulation.
Thus, the government later launched a new policy: the anti-food waste law.
China Food Waste Law In April 2021, Chinese lawmakers voted to adopt an anti-food waste law at a session of the National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee.

The law, aimed at safeguarding the country’s food security, answers President Xi’s calls for greater awareness regarding food security and targets primarily restaurants, which are the biggest source of food waste in China. First, excessive leftovers are banned to stop hosts from extravagantly ordering food to impress their guests.

Restaurants have the right to charge an extra fee to any patron who leaves excessive quantities of uneaten food.
Restaurants can choose their own charging rates, but these must be clearly displayed to consumers.
Second, catering service providers are required to remind customers of food frugality duties.

Restaurants found guilty of inducing or misleading behaviours may be fined up to 10,000 yuan (about USD$1,580). Restaurants that consistently waste large quantities of food may also be fined up to 50,000 yuan (USD$7,900). Third, online bloggers are banned from live streaming binge-eating and competitive eating.

Anyone who distributes such contents may face a fine of up to 100,000 yuan (USD$15,800), and media outlets may even be forced to shut down if their violations are deemed severe. Looking Ahead These are certainly never-seen-before policies, since they exert great control over people’s behaviour and can even be considered to be intrusive.

And since they were only adopted a few months ago, the effectiveness of such special policies has yet to be seen. However, adopting stricter food waste policies and regulations not only improve food security in China in the long run, but could also help contribute to the country’s efforts in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and achieve its overarching goal of carbon neutrality by 2060.

Why doesn t america recycle?

New survey discovers why most people don’t recycle This is what stops people from recycling more, finds a global survey — More than three quarters of the world’s population think recycling is important, but key barriers must be overcome to encourage them to act, according to a new study.

A by the World Economic Forum, SAP and Qualtrics questioned people in different parts of the world about their attitudes toward climate change and sustainability.
The survey found that many see recycling as confusing and overwhelming, with some participants uncertain about what can be recycled or how to recycle it.

Researchers surveyed more than 11,500 people across 28 countries. The results are made up of 70% general consumers and 30% corporate representatives. Who Gives A Crap Toilet Paper Review A picture taken on Jan.30, 2013, shows broken glass in a recycle bin in Godewaersvelde, France. (Photo: Philippe Huguen/AFP via Getty Images) The survey found that 94% of Americans support recycling, and 74% say it should be a top priority. But only about 35% of people actually recycle.

The top reason Americans say they don’t recycle regularly is a lack of convenient access.
Another problem, which is one that occurs in nearly all of the countries surveyed, is consumers don’t fully understand what can actually be recycled.
They end up recycling such items as plastic straws and takeout containers that aren’t recyclable.

These items most often end up being burned or put in a landfill. The survey found that a consistent recycling program could lessen the confusion and reduce waste. Varying standards, even within cities and counties, leave consumers to guess what’s best for the environment.

Well over half of respondents — and many more in some regions — said choosing new products with reusable packaging was the most adoptable zero-waste practice.
Around half thought avoiding products that are hard to recycle would reduce waste.
Extending the lifecycle of goods, by repairing them when worn or broken, saw strong support in regions like North America.

In regard to reducing consumption as a means of easing waste, North America along with East Asia and the Pacific recorded the highest support (38%) compared to just 23% in Africa. Copyright 2023 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Is China no longer buying recycling?

After China’s Recyclable Ban, Municipalities Shift Gears Who Gives A Crap Toilet Paper Review Increasingly, states are working to have producers share the cost of dealing with waste from the products. (Eco-Cycle) In 2018, China’s “National Sword” policy halted the import of plastics and other materials destined for its recycling processors. For decades, these facilities had dealt with of the waste that the rest of the world considered to be “recyclable.”This irreplaceable global market shut down as the result of abuse.

Too much of the material it received was contaminated – not only could it not be processed and used to make new products, it created an unwelcome waste stream. The impact on recycling in the U.S. was immediate, with a, Some collection programs stopped altogether, others tightened the list of materials they would accept.

Some sent recyclables to landfills or incinerated them. This domestic crisis made it impossible to ignore weaknesses in recycling infrastructure that were well known within the industry, says Kate Bailey, the policy and research director for, A nonprofit, Eco-Cycle has provided recycling services to Boulder County, Colo., for 45 years, offering one of the country’s first curbside programs.”We knew China was coming,” she says.

Everyone knew the bubble was going to burst; the silver lining in the National Sword policy is that it brought the challenges facing recycling to light and we’re starting to have some of the hard conversations that we should have had all along.” The U.S.
EPA has collected data about recycling rates.

The numbers reflect the amount of material that has been collected for recycling, not an exact accounting of how much of this material has been made into new products.

Do we import toilet paper from China?

America’s Toilet Paper Imports – Who Gives A Crap Toilet Paper Review One-ply, two-ply, extra-soft, recycled — no matter the kind, toilet paper is one commodity that America produces much of inside its own country. However, the country of nearly 400 million people still relies on imports to completely satisfy its need for the ubiquitous bathroom tissue,

It is estimated that one American household uses an average of 8 rolls of toilet paper per week, so the toilet paper train isn’t stopping anytime soon.
In 2018, the United States was the top importer of toilet paper in the world.
It’s estimated that America saw $2.58 billion worth of this important bathroom product make its way through customs.

Three countries were far and away the biggest exporters of toilet paper in that year to the U.S.: Canada (41.8%), China (29.9%) and Mexico (17.5%). For this trio alone, that adds up to a bit more than 89 percent of all the toilet paper America imported.

Why is there food waste in China?

So, what is the current state of food waste in China and how effective are its anti-food waste policies and law? — What is Food Waste? Food waste refers to food that is intended for human consumption that is lost anywhere across the supply chain, from farm stage to harvest to households.
Globally, about one third of global food supplies are wasted, or 2.5 billion tonnes, every year, while more than 800 million people face hunger and food insecurity.

While countries such as the United States and Australia are some of the world’s biggest culprits of food waste, the situation in China should not be swept under the rug either.
Causes of Food Waste in China More than 35 million tonnes of food – equivalent to about 6% of the country’s total food production – are lost or wasted in China annually, an amount which is enough to feed 30 to 50 million people, according to an investigation conducted by the Institute of Geographic and National Resources Research and the World Wide Fund for Nature.

The more food left uneaten, the more hospitable the host seems.
An investigation conducted in 2018 estimated that the amount of food wasted in Chinese cities at 93 grams per person per meal, which is around 12% of food that was served.
And for large banquets, the situation is even more severe.
More than one-third of the food is simply dumped.

Many video bloggers are gaining fame and support from their fans through these types of video content and exposure, and attracting even more into following this wasteful trend.
As a result, significantly more quantities of food are being left uneaten or even regurgitated, leading to excess food waste.

Unfortunately, there’s been no evidence that this campaign had any real impact on reducing national food waste in China.
The campaign only encouraged people to stop wasting food, but it lacked concrete control or regulation.
Thus, the government later launched a new policy: the anti-food waste law.
China Food Waste Law In April 2021, Chinese lawmakers voted to adopt an anti-food waste law at a session of the National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee.

Restaurants have the right to charge an extra fee to any patron who leaves excessive quantities of uneaten food.
Restaurants can choose their own charging rates, but these must be clearly displayed to consumers.
Second, catering service providers are required to remind customers of food frugality duties.

Anyone who distributes such contents may face a fine of up to 100,000 yuan (USD$15,800), and media outlets may even be forced to shut down if their violations are deemed severe.
Looking Ahead These are certainly never-seen-before policies, since they exert great control over people’s behaviour and can even be considered to be intrusive.

What is the most often used toilet in China?

Seats, Squats, and Leaves: A Brief History of Chinese Toilets A few years ago, I was standing with an American friend in a Shanghai office building, waiting for a meeting to start. Suddenly, my friend turned to me with a worried expression on her face and asked if the bathrooms had “Western” lavatories or “Chinese” ones, the latter referring to the squat toilets found in most of the country’s bathrooms.

When I replied that I didn’t know, she furrowed her brow even more deeply.
I have squatting phobia,” she said.
Going to the toilet in China can be a grueling experience.
Besides the lack of toilet paper, overpowering odors, and the somewhat laissez-faire attitude toward personal privacy, the need to squat instead of sit frequently poses a challenge to foreign visitors hurrying to answer the call of nature.

It’s a question that’s puzzled many outsiders over the years: Why do many Chinese people squat on their heels when they go to the toilet, while people from other countries, especially Western ones, perch atop a toilet bowl? It is likely that the most primitive form of a toilet was nothing more than a hole dug into the ground, over which people would squat.

In China, the character ce, which today appears in the word for “toilet,” has existed for at least 2,000 years.
However, in many regions in ancient China, this character also meant “pigsty,” and with good reason: Toilets in these regions would be built next to pigpens, and human waste would slide down a tunnel into the sty for the pigs to eat.

This practice can still be seen in certain parts of rural China today. When the Chinese began integrating toilets into their homes, northerners usually opted for the squat variety. North China suffers from frequent, so squat toilets were useful for storing night soil, which would then be used to fertilize crops.

South of the Yangtze River, however, sitting toilets were more common.
Most took the form of a crudely dug pit with a wooden bench placed over the top.
A hole in the board allowed people to conduct their business, though in many places the bench was little more than a wooden plank or thick branch upon which people were precipitously perched.

In cities, too, toilet habits were rather different. Most traditional residences in southern cities lacked separate bathrooms, and residents usually sat on a large, water-filled wooden bucket known as a matong, or “horse bucket” — a term that is still used to refer to a lavatory bowl today.

Every morning, residents would empty the contents of the matong into public restrooms and scrub the bucket clean with a bamboo brush in a nearby river.
Families often included a matong as part of their daughter’s dowries; after all, going to the toilet is part and parcel of everyday life.
Pit toilets and wooden matong were widely used in China as recently as the early 1990s.

Even today, pit toilets in many rural areas in the north have yet to be replaced by flushing toilets, largely due to unresolved water scarcity issues. Flushing toilets only appeared in China in the second half of the 19th century and were initially used by residents of colonial treaty ports, where foreign-run municipal authorities installed gas-lit public bathrooms with running water.

However, these projects were restricted to the country’s foreign concessions, and did not catch on among the wider Chinese populace. There were two reasons for this. First, Chinese cities were key links in the supply chain for the manure industry: Night soil collectors would collect human waste from public toilets and sell it to farmers in the countryside, who then would spread it on their crops.

In addition, modern flushing toilets rely on extensive sewage systems, which were a rarity in China at that time. It wasn’t until the mid-20th century that the government began exercising its administrative authority over toilets. In 1943, the Kuomintang government announced a plan to build public restrooms across areas under its control and began to penalize those who urinated or defecated in public spaces.

From the outset, public sanitation was bound up with the idea of creating a modern nation-state, alongside other concepts such as modern health care, physical education, and even resisting foreign imperialism.
After the Communist Party reunified China in 1949, the provision of public sanitation was further spurred on by the — an initiative which still continues today, albeit under a different moniker: the National Hygienic Cities Campaign.

Growing up in the 1980s in a small city in eastern China’s Zhejiang province, I regularly saw public toilets that were little more than pits in the ground being converted into sparkling, white ceramic flush toilets. In the ’80s, most public toilets took the form of a long trench with squatting spots separated by a number of low partitions.

A large water tank hung at one end of the trench, and when people flushed away their bathroom contents, they washed away everyone else’s too. These kinds of trench-style bathrooms are still used in certain places today, especially in old bus and train stations, and other areas where high numbers of people tend to congregate.

Today, a majority of public toilets in China — both in the north and in the south — are squat toilets. This is mainly because squatting toilets cost less to build and maintain than seated ones. Squatting toilets are also considered more hygienic: Not only do they minimize bodily contact with the pan, they also prevent unhealthy practices in a country with only of good sanitary practices.

Many Chinese are unaccustomed to flushing after using the bathroom, while others do not proactively clean up after themselves.
The ghastly state of some public restrooms means that some people, especially women, insist on perching on top of the seat when using sitting toilets.
China’s so-called toilet revolution will eventually flush out the country’s remaining substandard lavatories, but the provision of public toilets remains patchy.

Generally, squat toilets are a fixture of China’s countryside, while sitting toilets are generally seen in urban areas. Unfortunately, this means that the latter kind are frequently misused. After all, if someone grows up in a rural village where there are only squat toilets, how can you expect them to instinctively know how to use a sitting toilet once they move to the city? Translator: Katherine Tse; editors: Zhang Bo and Matthew Walsh.

Is any toilet paper made in the UK?

Ecoleaf – Cost: £4.39 for 9 rolls (49p per roll) / £21.96 for 45 rolls (49p per roll) UK shipping cost: £3.95 (also available in shops) Roll size: 200 sheets of 2-ply paper Made in/ships from: UK Packaged in: Compostable Wrapper Ecoleaf toilet paper is made in the UK from 100% recycled fibre sourced exclusively from the UK.