Squat toilets?
 

It might be quite a taboo in the U.S. or other developed countries, and even here in Brazil they're quite controversial due to their most frequent usage in prisons due to safety concerns. They're also not so user-friendly for disableds and the elderly, even though there are some relatively cheap ways to overcome this issue. On the other hand, the lower water consumption and the easier cleaning might turn a squat toilet into a more sustainable option.

The impossibility to install one in an apartment :D

And believe it or not, direct contact of sewage with the soil has been outlawed here due to contamination concerns. Septic tanks are now mandatory in areas not served by sewage treatment.

Great, flashbacks I don't need. Like the porta-s that got used as squats.

For public toilets? Sure. I think it's a decent idea...could just hose the place down a couple of times a days. Place would stay cleaner than the ones we have now.

Honestly, I don't want to come in contact with the truly public toilets out there. I'd rather hover, if I absolutely had to, which amounts to the same as squatting. Heck, squatting would probably be easier.

I had to get out my copy to remind myself of the author of The Bathroom, Alexander Kira. From a review of the three major appliances in Treehugger, https://www.treehugger.com/bathroom-...-plumbing.html

https://media.treehugger.com/assets/...ira-toilet.jpg

This work was done in 1966. Recently, a 'butt-load' of money was made with the Squatty Potty, which draws on this research.

https://www.squattypotty.com/

I started describing the results of local nationals using our bathrooms.

I did not need that trip down Memory Lane and you guys did not need a guest pass.

Considering that even some privately-owned toilets accessible to the public are often dirty and in a state of disrepair, that would be another advantage for squat toilets. Another aspect that is quite critical in public toilets back here is the high incidence of vandalism, which squat toilets tend to be more resistent to.

How wheelchair friendly are they?

Squat toilets are not wheelchair-friendly to any extent, unless provided with a seating adapter (which are commercially available, mostly in Asian countries), but neither is a regular public toilet cubicle which doesn't have enough space for a wheelchair user to transfer from the chair to the toilet and also doesn't have those support bars.

I was planning on installing my low-flow toilet today. Do you think it will win me points with the eco fairy? Or Eco Karma. Or some such.

My new landlord says our toilet takes up to six flashes.

More power!

I flash the toiled all the time.

But, hey, I figure if I have to flush twice for solids, that's no big deal, since most flushes won't be solids. And it's still less to flush it twice or even three times over the old one.

Wait, you flush liquid waste?! :eek:

My bad...? :p

Good Soldiers drink water. I consume about a gallon a day. If I had my own bathroom, I would not flush clear waste.

I like dual-flush toilets that require flushing differently for solid waste.

My original low flow toilet required two flushes for solid waste. The replacement, an American Standard Cadet, which is also a low flow (1.6 gal/flush), consistently completely flushes solids over the past 10 years with a single flush.

How about squatting composting toilets? :D

Not bad to use in a farm.

I have doubts about the new toilet's ability to flush solids, but if using as little water as reasonably possible is the goal, it's good there. It only flushes as long as you hold the lever, so if you just press it down and let it go right away, it only uses like a litre or so; just enough to clear what little liquid it holds in the bowl. You have to hold the litre to get the whole gallon and a bit to go through.

While not overly impressed, I can't really complain. I got it on clearance for fifty bucks. Its low flow and solves our issue of the old toilet valve not wanting to shut off occasionally.

Flushing ability has more to do with cistern height than anything. It's not about volume flushed but flow rate. Kind of like expecting to be able to flush a poo with a piss, a slow flush is useless. Think of water blasters using next-to-no water compared to a hose

Toilet tanks used to be on a 3 or 4ft standpipe with a pull cord on the lever. One wonders why they didn't return to that design with the low flow models.

I thought that was negative though?

That might be why the flapper valve is raised a number of inches off the bottom of the tank. The water below that point will never leave the tank...couldn't figure out what the point was. This is a good theory.

As of yet. I have yet to be able to slow it down, let alone plug it...quite impressed.

I could ask my new landlord about raising the tank and putting in a padded backrest, but it would probably make more sense to ask what he wants to do before he installs the new toilet sitting in a box.

Xist, if you still have access to the old toilet, you could take the tank and see what happens when you fill half the waters area with cement or something lighter to drop the amount of water in tank by half while still getting good hieght and use a 4 inch pipe to keep the cement away from the flushing components. Then you put some little pieces of angle iron at the top of the pipe to give the water a twist to try and get it to shoot through the toilet faster!!

Then you take the composting toilet seats with the separate part for pee that then runs down a 1/2 inch pipe through the toilet so it doesn’t use any water for that anymore?!?