Shit. Poop. Doo doo. Crap. Turd.
Are you giggling yet?
Take a dump. Make a deposit. Drop the kids off at the pool. Release the chocolate hostage. Invest in the logging industry.
How about now?
People love turning uncomfortable things and situations into jokes, and the English language is replete with colorful words and expressions to describe our bowel movements. Going to the bathroom is completely normal, natural, and biologically necessary – but because it’s a private act that involves our most private of body parts, it remains a taboo topic of discussion.
The toilet, by extension, is rarely talked about. After all, it is easier to make it a joke than to recognize the modern toilet as a life-saving invention. Just how important is it? According to the World Toilet Organization:
Around one billion people in our world today face the indignity of defecating in the open. Lack of clean and safe toilets at schools leads to higher dropout [rates] among girls once they reach puberty. Diarrhoeal diseases – a direct consequence of poor sanitation – kill more children every year than AIDS, malaria, and measles combined. Clean and safe toilets are prerequisites for health, dignity, privacy, and education.
What can be done to make the “silly” toilet serious?
“That’s an eternal question,” says Nariko Yamashita, company spokeswoman at Toto, the world’s largest toilet manufacturer.
Tech in Asia was recently given a private tour of the company’s Tokyo showroom to learn more about the toilet’s evolution – from simple porcelain bowls to high-tech electronic affairs that prevent disease and save the environment.
A clean slate
In 1912, a Japanese man by the name of Kazuchika Okura set up a laboratory in Kitakyushu to develop sanitary ceramics similar to those being produced in the US and Europe. At that time, many toilets in Japan were of the squatting variety still common around Asia. There was still no public sewage system – even in Tokyo – and outhouses still existed in rural areas.
Fast forward to 1923 and the Great Kanto Earthquake. Tokyo was leveled, over 100,000 people lost their lives, and the region was forced to rebuild from the ground up. Starting from zero allowed city planners to construct a modern sewage system, and western-style (sit-down) toilets began making a more widespread appearance.
Economic boom also furthered the expansion of modern toilets in Japan. Japan’s post-war economic miracle would elevate Toto to new heights.
“After [WWII], there was a big push to revitalize the economy,” says Yamashita. “There was a huge construction boom in the 1970s, with a lot of new buildings being built each year. In those new buildings, developers opted for western-style toilets.”
Toto still made Japanese-style squat toilets, but the western style was more sanitary – and certainly came with fewer concerns about splashing. They were also easier to fit into newly-constructed bathrooms. By the 1980s, people were demanding western-style toilets in their own homes.
“It was no longer an issue of just putting them in new apartments or in new office buildings,” Yamashita says. “This is when sales started to really pick up.”
Today, Toto is a globally-recognized brand with operations spread out across the globe. In Japan alone it has four manufacturing plants that supply the domestic market. This practice is in line with the company’s core strategy of setting up factories on a per-country basis that only ship locally.
“We have no intention of building a cheap toilet outside of Japan and then shipping it back,” Yamashita says. “Only in the case of very large orders are they mass-produced overseas, but we’re generally averse to this as the ceramic is fragile. The shorter the shipping distance, the better.”
Toto’s success – even now – hinges on its ability to provide both quality and quantity whenever there’s new construction.
Let’s wash
Toto’s flagship product, the Washlet, was invented in 1980 and began shipping to consumers in 1982. Trivia time! Its name is simply the English phrase “Let’s wash” flipped around. The electronic toilet seat was developed to enhance cleanliness – but, for non-Japanese, it’s become a curiosity due to the fact that it directs a pressurized stream of warm water at your nether regions. YouTube is filled with videos of foreigners both marveling – and laughing – at the Washlet’s spray function.
“It was actually very difficult to get people to try it in the first place, but as of last year, 76 percent of Japanese homes have a Washlet-style toilet,” Yamashita says, though she declined to divulge Toto’s direct share of that percentage (companies like Panasonic and Samsung have since jumped on the electronic toilet bandwagon). “If those economic changes had not occurred 30 years ago, we would have been stuck with Japanese-style toilets – and you can’t put a Washlet on top of a Japanese-style toilet. If it wasn’t for this shift, Toto’s entire future could have changed.”
Yamashita chalks up the Washlet’s domestic popularity to the Japanese having a penchant for trying new things, especially new technology.
Toto has been selling the Washlet overseas for about 10 years, but the company expects a rough road ahead in getting more people to buy the Washlet outside of Japan. Yamashita cites three prevailing issues: regulations, culture, and cost.
“Building regulations related to plumbing dictate what kind of pipes can be used, and thus whether a toilet can connect to that building’s water supply or not,” Yamashita says. “Because Washlets rely on electricity, they sometimes run afoul of local building laws.
When the company encounters particularly restrictive red tape, it looks for a way around it. If a local regulation forbids having an electrical outlet in the bathroom, for example, Toto designs a longer plug.
Yamashita cites cultural differences as the biggest hurdle that Toto faces when entering a new market:
The Japanese didn’t have a Washlet culture at first, and now it’s huge. We believe that, with enough time and effort, we can convince other people to get on board. Again, a desire to try new things is strong in China and Taiwan. We’re also thinking a lot about Southeast Asia, where Islam and Hinduism are very prevalent and a high priority is placed on cleanliness. It’s just a matter of time.
China is Toto’s largest foreign market, not only in terms of the number of people, but in the rate of adoption. Similar to what happened in Japan, China’s economic boom has led to a lot of new buildings being created, opening the door for Toto to install its next-generation porcelain and plastic.
The final issue remaining is cost. Full Washlet-toilet setups can cost from a few thousand dollars to more than US$10,000 – not nearly as emerging-market friendly as a simple squatter.
Royal flush
Toto invented another innovative bathroom product in 1988. Though decidedly low-tech compared to the Washlet, Otohime (“princess sound” in English) has made women more comfortable with using public restrooms – all while saving countless millions of gallons of water in the process.
An internal study found that Japanese women flushed the toilet an average of 2.3 times during each visit to the bathroom. Why? Because the sounds associated with going “number two” made them feel embarrassed. Toto realized that if there was already a sound, women wouldn’t have to waste so much water – and thus the princess sound was born.
A small speaker, either on the toilet itself or integrated in the wall-mounted Washlet control panel, can be activated at the press of a button to create the princess sound – which sounds, unsurprisingly, like running water.
“In an office building that houses approximately 1,000 employees, adding the princess sound to each ladies’ room leads to annual water bill savings of roughly JPY 3.8 million (US$37,000),” Yamashita says. “Even a small restaurant with a single toilet can save JPY 80,000 (US$790) a year.”
If you think about very high-traffic bathrooms – those in hotel lobbies or train stations, for example – Yamashita says that the uber-polite noise-maker could potentially save hundreds of thousands of dollars. Toto has experienced a recent surge in requests for princess sound modules from hotels that are renovating ahead of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, she adds.
It has become such a cultural phenomenon in Japan that Toto, in collaboration with Japanese toy maker Takara Tomy, made a portable princess sound device that women can keep in their purses.
Yamashita says that, recently, men have been asking the company for a prince sound.
Gray dawn
Japan, aging faster than any other country in the world, is staring down a demographic crisis of unprecedented scale. A plummeting fertility rate – just 1.39 children per woman – isn’t nearly enough to balance out annual deaths. The population is expected to fall from its current 127 million people to just 87 million by 2060. By then, more than 40 percent of Japanese will be aged 65 or older.
Toto is anticipating this monumental restructuring of society. At the end of the day, old folks still need toilets.
“We can’t get into too much detail about company secrets, but it’s obvious that Japan’s rapidly-aging society is something we cannot ignore,” Yamashita says. “We’re going to help older citizens by designing toilets that can assist them. Even for the younger generations, we’re focused on making products that help people maintain their health.”
One way the company plans to make its products more accessible is by improving upon its universal design. Washlet control panels now have braille for blind people. Panels with large buttons and text are also available for the elderly or those with poor eyesight.
As far as the future of the toilet itself, there’s one product that Yamashita says could be seen as a first step in that direction – and it lives in the middle of your bedroom.
Typically, live-in caretakers must constantly figure out a way to get patients into the bathroom – picking them up, getting them into a wheelchair, and so on. Toto’s portable toilet eliminates all of that trouble.
“Of course, there are bedpans and other kinds of next-to-the-bed toilets, but they aren’t real toilets because they constantly have to be emptied out,” Yamashita says. “With this toilet, there’s no manual labor involved in removing the waste, as it actually reaches into the home’s plumbing system.”
In order to make having it in the middle of the room possible, the connecting hoses have to be smaller than your typical metal toilet plumbing. With smaller hoses comes increased difficulty in flushing solid waste. The solution? A cube-shaped unit that attaches behind the toilet acts as a blender, breaking down the brown so it can be easily flushed away. The only limiting factor to Toto’s portable toilet is its two-meter long sewage cable (any longer might make flushing difficult).
Toto also makes an accessory that can be added to existing toilets that can raise and lower the seat to help a user stand up and sit down more easily – perfect for elderly people and those with bad backs. Yamashita says that it’s strong enough to support the weight of normal people, but a sumo wrestler would need a special one.
Chemical-free clean
Toto was conceived as a company that made a more sanitary alternative to traditional hole-in-the-ground toilets. Its commitment to cleanliness remains unchanged – but the tools of the trade have evolved with advances in technology. The latest development in clean toilet tech is electrolyzed water – or, as Toto calls it, “E-water Plus.”
“Normally, you’d use store-bought chemicals to keep your toilet clean – many of which are not environmentally friendly,” says Yamashita. “E-water starts as water and remains water until it gets flushed down the drain, without any chemicals. That fact makes it the most eco-friendly cleaning solution available. From a labor standpoint, you don’t need to clean as much. From a cost standpoint, you don’t need to buy toilet cakes or cleaners. On top of those benefits, it helps save the environment.”
Speaking of saving the environment, Toto’s newest toilets use only 3.8 liters of water per flush. Traditional toilets use a mind-boggling 13 liters of water per flush – total overkill when you consider that healthy urine output for an adult is about half a liter a day.
Returning to the emphasis on cleanliness – most modern Washlets now feature sensors or wall-mounted buttons to raise the lid, the seat, and to flush (not to mention massage functions and bottom dryers). Some even feature germ-killing UV lights that turn on when the lid is closed. They also know when you’re sitting or standing, so blasting the bidet out of the toilet to prank your friends is no longer a possibility… unless, of course, you block the sensor.
In 2014, only your bottom has to physically make contact with the toilet.
“In the old days, the idea of the bathroom being an important place didn’t exist,” Yamashita says. “It was often at the bottom of the stairs, in a small, cramped area. Not a lot of thought was given to it – just anything to keep it away from the center of the house or out of the house entirely, because we want to keep the unclean places as far away as possible. Now, there’s much more space given to the bathroom when building a house. You can go to the bathroom to collect your thoughts, to just have some alone time. People are using the toilet for a longer period of time in general.”
She adds, “We can’t say this as a hard fact, but Toto does believe that its toilets and Washlets have changed the image of the bathroom in the mind of Japanese people.”
Now, Toto just has to convince the rest of the world that its high-tech toilets deserve their respect – and their hard-earned money.
See: Bill Gates calls for Indian inventors to reinvent the toilet, save lives
Author’s note: Special thanks to David Corbin for translation assistance.
Japan’s high-tech toilets are no laughing matter
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