The Ministry of Environment yesterday held a seminar in Taipei for experts from Taiwan and Japan to exchange their experiences on the designs and development of public toilets.
Japan Toilet Association chairman Kohei Yamamoto said that he was impressed with the eco-toilet set up at Daan Forest Park, adding that Japan still faces issues regarding public restrooms despite the progress it made over the past decades.
For example, an all-gender toilet was set up in Kabukicho in Tokyo’s Shinjuku District several years ago, but it caused a public backlash and was rebuilt into traditional men’s and women’s toilets, he said.
Photo: CNA
Japan Toilet Association director Mikiko Takahashi talked about her experience of inspecting public toilets in Japan’s Ishikawa Prefecture following the Noto Peninsula earthquake last year, saying that some toilets were damaged by the tsunami and remained unusable.
Japan has a policy that temporary toilets must be transported to earthquake-stricken areas if the seismic intensity reaches level seven or higher, but transportation requires three days in most cases, she said.
The delivery of temporary toilets was further delayed after the Noto Peninsula earthquake as many access roads were destroyed, Takahashi said.
Therefore, the Japanese government has developed a portable plastic toilet that can be placed on a toilet bowl, with excrement being wrapped up in emergencies or disasters where water is absent, she said.
A survey conducted in 2023 showed that more than 75 percent of Japanese prepared drinking water for disaster use, but only about 20 percent had emergency toilets prepared, Takahashi said, calling on the public to prepare one of these toilets in case of emergencies and to practice using it.
Environmental Protection Administration official Lin Yi-fang (林憶芳) said the ministry has listed more than 45,000 public restrooms for management nationwide, as well as funded the construction of 951 all-gender restrooms and 1,345 public restrooms at tourist sites.
The government would continue to promote all-gender restrooms, as such a design responds to the needs of gender-diverse people and helps reduce the waiting time for women at restrooms, she said, citing WHO data as showing that women wait twice as long as men to use a public toilet.
Friends of Daan Forest Park Foundation managing director Tsai Chien-sheng (蔡建生) said that a sitting toilet is the key to a healthy toilet culture and every user is responsible for keeping public restrooms clean.
Research showed that a squat toilet has 164 times more germs than a sitting toilet, as urine or excrement can easily splash out of the bowl, he said.
The proportion of public sitting toilets in Japan reached more than 99 percent in 2015 from 17 percent in 1963, while public squat toilets almost ceased to be manufactured over the same period, Tsai said.
Deputy Minister of Environment Shen Chih-hsiu (沈志修) said that public restrooms can represent a nation’s cultural depth and Japan has set an excellent example in this regard that Taiwan should try to learn from, especially with Taiwan becoming an aging society.
It is important for elderly people to have safe, convenient sitting toilets available for use while they are in public spaces, he said.
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
The first bluefin tuna of the season, brought to shore in Pingtung County and weighing 190kg, was yesterday auctioned for NT$10,600 (US$333.5) per kilogram, setting a record high for the local market. The auction was held at the fish market in Donggang Fishing Harbor, where the Siaoliouciou Island-registered fishing vessel Fu Yu Ching No. 2 delivered the “Pingtung First Tuna” it had caught for bidding. Bidding was intense, and the tuna was ultimately jointly purchased by a local restaurant and a local company for NT$10,600 per kilogram — NT$300 ,more than last year — for a total of NT$2.014 million. The 67-year-old skipper
BREACH OF CONTRACT: The bus operators would seek compensation and have demanded that the manufacturer replace the chips with ones that meet regulations Two bus operators found to be using buses with China-made chips are to demand that the original manufacturers replace the systems and provide compensation for breach of contract, the Veterans Affairs Council said yesterday. Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) yesterday said that Da Nan Bus Co and Shin-Shin Bus Co Ltd have fielded a total of 82 buses that are using Chinese chips. The bus models were made by Tron-E, while the systems provider was CYE Electronics, Lin said. Lin alleged that the buses were using chips manufactured by Huawei subsidiary HiSilicon Co, which presents a national security risk if the
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