Things have been pretty serious around here lately. We've been talking a lot about isolationist tariffs that make zero economic sense and that have been blatantly miscalculated, and so let's switch gears and talk about something a little more fun: toilets.

If any of you remember my post from earlier this year called "Takeaways from Japan," you might remember this:

Our toilets are in the stone ages. You’re not going to get yourself clean with just paper. You need a comfortable warm seat and highly adjustable jets of water. I never fully appreciated this need before the trip, but now I’m a true believer. It’s time for a new toilet.

Well, I meant it when I said it:

This week, I finally got around to installing a new TOTO WASHLET seat on my existing toilet. My bathroom may now look a little more geriatric, but it's a fantastic quality of life upgrade that more people, outside of Japan, should adopt. So why don't they?

The TOTO WASHLET seat was first created in 1980. And since then (and up until 2022), the company has reported selling more than 60 million units, with the majority of them being sold in Japan. As of 2021, it was believed that over 80% of Japanese households were equipped with some sort of heated bidet toilet.

Market penetration is much lower in the West. In the US, ChatGPT think it's less than 5%. And based on anecdotal evidence, this does not seem far off. I almost never see them in public places (though The Butcher Chef here in Toronto has one) and I rarely see them in people's homes.

My gut is that it's a combination of a lack of awareness and people thinking it's weird and/or unhygienic. I mean, is that wand clean? But if you travel to Japan, you will have an aha moment. So maybe TOTO needs to figure out a way to export this moment to the rest of the world through, oh I don't know, some sort of public toilet program.

Note: This post is not sponsored by TOTO. But I really wish it were, because then maybe I would have gotten my seat for free.

Portable toilets are needed on every construction site, and in lots of other places too. Generally speaking, though, they are not pleasant spaces. But that doesn't seem to be the case in Switzerland. I just discovered a Swiss company called Kompotoi. They make high-quality portable toilets out of spruce, and they have made a commitment to composting as much human waste as possible.

But the really unique feature that I had never seen before is that each toilet comes equipped with a bin of wood shavings ("litter"), which you are supposed to sprinkle over your poop once you're done. This serves two important functions. One, it dries out the waste which greatly reduces any smells. I can attest that the toilet I used smelt just fine. And two, doesn't it just look better to go into a toilet and see wood shavings as opposed to poop?

This might be an instance of "yeah, only in Switzerland." The retail price for their classic toilet model is CHF 5,966. That works out to about C$9,500 once you covert it to our painfully weak dollar.

One of the biggest challenges with living through this pandemic has been finding a good public toilet. Drinking in the park is all fine and dandy, but at some point you're going to need to find a place to pee. From experience, I can tell you that this can be a challenge in places like Toronto and Vancouver. But from the looks of it, the situation is a bit different in Tokyo. Japan, apparently, views its toilets as a symbol of its world-renowned hospitality culture. And so it takes great pride in the design of its public toilets. Last year, Tokyo invited 16 creators from around the world to redesign 17 of its public toilets throughout Shibuya. The list of creators includes big names like Tadao Ando, Kengo Kuma, Shigeru Ban, Toyo Ito, and many others. And the result is probably the nicest collection of public toilets that you have ever seen (somewhere around 9 of them are already operational with the balance expected to open sometime this year). The uniforms worn by the maintenance staff were even designed by Nigo (creator of the fashion brand A Bathine Ape). That's attention to detail.

For more about The Tokyo Toilet project and to check out the completed toilets, click here.

Image: The Tokyo Toilet

Things have been pretty serious around here lately. We've been talking a lot about isolationist tariffs that make zero economic sense and that have been blatantly miscalculated, and so let's switch gears and talk about something a little more fun: toilets.

If any of you remember my post from earlier this year called "Takeaways from Japan," you might remember this:

Our toilets are in the stone ages. You’re not going to get yourself clean with just paper. You need a comfortable warm seat and highly adjustable jets of water. I never fully appreciated this need before the trip, but now I’m a true believer. It’s time for a new toilet.

Well, I meant it when I said it:

This week, I finally got around to installing a new TOTO WASHLET seat on my existing toilet. My bathroom may now look a little more geriatric, but it's a fantastic quality of life upgrade that more people, outside of Japan, should adopt. So why don't they?

The TOTO WASHLET seat was first created in 1980. And since then (and up until 2022), the company has reported selling more than 60 million units, with the majority of them being sold in Japan. As of 2021, it was believed that over 80% of Japanese households were equipped with some sort of heated bidet toilet.

Market penetration is much lower in the West. In the US, ChatGPT think it's less than 5%. And based on anecdotal evidence, this does not seem far off. I almost never see them in public places (though The Butcher Chef here in Toronto has one) and I rarely see them in people's homes.

My gut is that it's a combination of a lack of awareness and people thinking it's weird and/or unhygienic. I mean, is that wand clean? But if you travel to Japan, you will have an aha moment. So maybe TOTO needs to figure out a way to export this moment to the rest of the world through, oh I don't know, some sort of public toilet program.

Note: This post is not sponsored by TOTO. But I really wish it were, because then maybe I would have gotten my seat for free.

Portable toilets are needed on every construction site, and in lots of other places too. Generally speaking, though, they are not pleasant spaces. But that doesn't seem to be the case in Switzerland. I just discovered a Swiss company called Kompotoi. They make high-quality portable toilets out of spruce, and they have made a commitment to composting as much human waste as possible.

But the really unique feature that I had never seen before is that each toilet comes equipped with a bin of wood shavings ("litter"), which you are supposed to sprinkle over your poop once you're done. This serves two important functions. One, it dries out the waste which greatly reduces any smells. I can attest that the toilet I used smelt just fine. And two, doesn't it just look better to go into a toilet and see wood shavings as opposed to poop?

This might be an instance of "yeah, only in Switzerland." The retail price for their classic toilet model is CHF 5,966. That works out to about C$9,500 once you covert it to our painfully weak dollar.

One of the biggest challenges with living through this pandemic has been finding a good public toilet. Drinking in the park is all fine and dandy, but at some point you're going to need to find a place to pee. From experience, I can tell you that this can be a challenge in places like Toronto and Vancouver. But from the looks of it, the situation is a bit different in Tokyo. Japan, apparently, views its toilets as a symbol of its world-renowned hospitality culture. And so it takes great pride in the design of its public toilets. Last year, Tokyo invited 16 creators from around the world to redesign 17 of its public toilets throughout Shibuya. The list of creators includes big names like Tadao Ando, Kengo Kuma, Shigeru Ban, Toyo Ito, and many others. And the result is probably the nicest collection of public toilets that you have ever seen (somewhere around 9 of them are already operational with the balance expected to open sometime this year). The uniforms worn by the maintenance staff were even designed by Nigo (creator of the fashion brand A Bathine Ape). That's attention to detail.

For more about The Tokyo Toilet project and to check out the completed toilets, click here.

Image: The Tokyo Toilet