If there’s one person who’s celebrating the Environmental Protection Administration’s (EPA) announcement last month to encourage Taiwan residents to flush their toilet paper down the bowl rather than disposing of it in bins, it’s Kuo Wei-jun (郭韋均).
“Imagine that!” says the bespectacled and smiling elderly housekeeper who works at a posh residential building in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義). “Taking out the garbage and not having to see and smell people’s poop-stained toilet paper. How wonderful is that?”
Ask any Taiwanese as to why the practice persists and the most common response is that pipes are susceptible to clogging, and that most toilet paper sold in Taiwan is not bio-degradable.
illustration: Dana Ter
Until recently, this was also the government’s view. In addition to working with manufacturers to speed up the production of water-soluble toilet paper, the EPA is currently cooperating with the Construction and Planning Agency to move forward with plans to build a more effective sewage treatment system.
EPA Minister Lee Ying-yuan (李應元) tells the Taipei Times that within six months the administration will put new signs in public toilets, instructing people to flush their toilet paper but not other objects such as sanitary napkins. He adds that they are also considering swapping trash cans for smaller, sanitary napkin bins in the women’s restrooms.
LONG ROAD TO CHANGE
Kuo might want to put her celebratory plans on hold though, as constructing a new sewage system — and changing people’s habits — will take time.
Jason Ni (倪孟正), an assistant professor at the City University of Hong Kong with expertise in urban planning in Taiwan says that although he believes revamping the sewage system has always been a government priority, it’ll take “considerable time and money.”
Ni, who is originally from Taiwan, says older buildings, especially those dating from the Japanese colonial era, “might not be ideal for taking in toilet paper.”
Those living in newer, modern buildings have nothing to worry about and should be able to flush their toilet paper, he adds.
Though the building that Kuo works at is just over a decade old — and its residents are wealthy enough to buy bio-degradable toilet paper — she says the tenants in most of the units she cleans still throw their toilet paper in trash bins.
“It’s an old habit that needs to change,” she sighs.
OLD HABITS DIE HARD
It’s a habit that has been passed down for generations.
“Why do I dispose of my toilet paper in a bin?” says Chang Ying-ting (張英挺). The 30-something-year-old shrugs. “Elderly people told me to.”
Owner of Ja Ho (家伙) restaurant, Boy Chow (周博) agrees that the culture of respecting authority figures has been a contributing factor to the persistence of the habit.
“Even teachers [told us] to do so growing up,” says the Taipei native. “It’s embedded deeply as a belief in our life that we stop questioning the validity of such practice and the logic behind it.”
Chang only started questioning this practice while living in the US, where flushing toilet paper is the norm.
“It was a new experience,” he recalls. “Like drinking water from a tap.”
Another respondent, 30-something banker Tom Wu (吳政霖), says that the idea of toilet paper being bio-degradable was new to him until he traveled to Japan. He looks forward to bio-degradable paper becoming more accessible to residents in Taiwan.
It’ll be nice not to have “used paper scattered on the floor,” Wu says.
LEARNING CURVE
One demographic that is welcoming the change is Taipei’s young restaurateurs. Kevin Chen (陳品安), owner of Sprout restaurant (初芽), says if a law were passed mandating that people flush their toilet paper, he’ll put up signs in the restrooms instructing patrons to flush.
“We plan to change it,” Chen, who hails from Mission Viejo, California, says.
He adds that the restaurant will keep the bins at first “because there are always people who don’t read anything and will just throw [the toilet paper] on the ground.”
Chow says he is also considering removing the bins from the restrooms in his restaurant and putting up signs sometime within the next few months asking people to flush toilet paper.
Chen sees one problem with this though. “Older generations who aren’t used to it and don’t see a trash can might just throw [toilet paper] on the ground,” he says.
Minister Lee, however, doesn’t see that as being a problem. “[Taiwanese] have a good sense of civic consciousness,” he says.
Still, Chow and Chen believe that people need to be educated, and that it would be best to employ creative approaches.
Videos and social media are a good place to start, Chow muses.
“We’d definitely start seeing changes in no time.”
Chen is excited for this change to take place as the restaurant has both local and foreign customers and he doesn’t want foreign customers, who aren’t accustomed to the practice of disposing toilet paper in bins, to be disgusted by the sight.
“If I were visiting Taiwan and I saw a trash can stuffed with used toilet paper, I’d be grossed out and not want to come again.”
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