I clearly am both ass backwards technologically and… er, um… ass forwards ecologically since I don’t have one of these. I am curious how much water is used in creating old fashioned toilet paper.
Few Japanese innovations have brought more pleasure, as well as convenience, than the Washlet – the high-tech toilet that warms, spray-cleans and dries the bottom, as well as disposing of its waste products. “Even your bottom can be beautiful,” the Washlet’s advertising slogan goes. “Your bottom will like it after only three tries.”
But now chastening news. The soothing Washlet, it turns out, is the cloacal equivalent of a Humvee – a wasteful, energy-guzzling enemy of the earth.
All together now…
It may now be only a matter of time before people round the world can join as one in the words of the Toto Loo Song:
Flush, O flush
The Toto Loo.
Big jobs, little jobs,
And the paper you use,
Flush them away!
haha, they have one of these on the Japanese episode of Diggation, so funny!
It seems like if China just treated their sewage and didn’t dump all their industrial waste into rivers there wouldn’t be much of a problem. Maybe as a reward if they only dumped half their waste they could use fancy toilets.
Maybe they do use too much energy and water, but just remember this — if they ever outlaw these toilets for wasting our resources, only outlaws will have beautiful bottoms.
I remember when Japanese toilets was a hole in the floor with a spigot to rinse the drain. Many of Westerners with bad knees endured cramps until they got to a regular style loo.
“Your bottom will like it after only three tries.”
The first two tries must be hell! 🙂
And watch out when they substitute “low flow” sprayers to conserve water.
Actually, they make a version where all the extras aren’t electrically powered and water flow is variable. They showed this goodie on This Old House, one time, and I checked out their web site.
And ToTo is one of the few brands distributed worldwide who also has the brains to make low-flush Green models for areas with supportive building codes.
In my neck of the woods, plumbers and contractors can accumulate “low water use” credits by replacing old-style commodes in homes with the low-flow ToTo. There are dudes who make a good living doing just this single task.
An updated bidot.
I remember my first trip to New York with my parents, the hotel had bidots in the rooms, my Dad says they couldn’t keep me off the damn thing, he said I would go into the bathroom looking neat and proper and come out looking like I had just swam the English channel.
This should be fun for the kids.
Elvis Ripley: Have you ever gone to China? What makes you think they dump sewage into the rivers? Was it a magazine you read?
China no longer dumps sewage into the rivers. I admit they did do this about ten years ago, but what about the US? US dumped waste into river years ago as well. In fact they still do, but people might not be aware of it. Don’t forget the US is the big energy user, so all that pollution from exhausts that is damaging the air and rivers. What kind of problem China has, much of the world has as well.
Also these toilets are used mainly in JAPAN. The reason the Japanese like it so much is that there is not much land for landfills, so using waste treatment plants instead is more practical.
Yeah. I know there is all that stuff in America and I have been to China and seen the yellow river and traveled around and smelled the sewage everywhere so I just assumed it was from sewage. I guess it could be from something else. Commercial farming in America creates loads of waste that just goes into rivers. I know that too in case you mention that. I have also seen it on TV and in magazines. Everyone should stop doing it and be happy and plant trees and eat wild plants.
This is 8th wonder of the world for my personal catagory . The fist try out was really weird but after that got use to it and cant really live without either. I lived in Japan so tell me a bit of that!
Hey,
All the Starbucks in Japan have these and they do save lots of water.
Japanese women do not like to have anyone able to hear noises coming out of the bath room, so the washlets have a speaker that sounds like water so the women don’t have to turn on the faucet to drown out the natural sounds.
Also they work very well. We brought one back..only problem is all the women in the house will only use this one toilet.
I’ve experienced this toilet. My friend’s sister has one of these, and I tried it (my friend refused). Quick summary — I would never waste my $$ on one. And, I think I could do a 5 minute improv comedy routine about the experience. It was all you might imagine.
The one I used had all the buttons shown here — steady stream, pulsating water, front wash (“front cleansing”) and back wash (“rear cleansing”), and a dryer. While keeping this discussion “clean”, all I will say is: 1) the process took several minutes, 2) there is no way to tell when it is “done” with the washing job or the drying portion, and 3) after all this, the job wasn’t finished. And, as a guy, I simply don’t think this was designed for our gender… (“front cleansing” was rather ambiguous)
One last thing — the seat is also heated. This would only appeal to me if the whole room was very cold. Otherwise, it made me feel like the seat had been recently occupied…
Call me old fashioned, but I’ll stick with my cold, owner-operated seat.
ps — the suggestion by RonD of a “low flow” version would make this product completely unusable. As it is, the volume of water dispensed is not very much…