By Cheyenne Macdonald and Tracy You For Mailonline
China is working hard to overhaul its public sanitation system, and it’s updating toilets with Wi-Fi, television screens, and even ATM machines.
People don’t usually like to linger in public restrooms; in China, with the squat toilets, shortage of toilet paper, and sometimes unsanitary conditions, the bathroom experience can be daunting.
Now, high-tech restrooms could turn public toilet-use into a more enjoyable situation.
According to The New York Times, China will be renovating or constructing 57,000 public bathrooms, and some of them will be equipped with high-tech gadgets.
In Fangshan, a new public facility has turbo-flushing powers in the toilets, along with wireless internet and TV screens in the stalls.
The windows are lined with aloe vera plants, and a cello soundtrack plays in the background.
The first new-generation bathroom opened to the public in November, in front of the government offices of the Fangshan District in south-west Beijing.
It will even conserve water, recycling sink water to flush toilets.
The event was timed to celebrate the ‘World’s Toilet Day,’ which falls on the same day, and is a part of the first ‘China Toilet Revolution Propaganda Day.’
For many years, China has suffered from sanitary issues in its public bathrooms. In poorer communities, 14 million people must defecate in the open.
‘Change is certainly needed,’ Lu Suisheng told NYT. ‘In some Chinese toilets, people need to step on bricks to avoid stepping on dirty areas. How can you use toilets like that?’
According to a flatplan displayed outside of the building, the spacious beige-tiled restroom has 11 different sections, including male toilets, female toilets, unisex toilets, accessible toilets, baby-changing facilities, an e-commerce area and an ATM room.
The entire area has available Wi-Fi and there are vending machines selling different type of soft drinks. Each toilet or urinal is equipped with a flat-screen TV set nearby for entertaining the user.
‘It’s much cleaner now,’ Zhang Min, a janitor who maintains the facility, told NYT. ‘There’s even a shower room and a changing room for us workers.’
Still, not everybody is impressed.
‘What was wrong with the old one? The government has too much money and doesn’t know how to spend it,’ Li Wen said to NYT.
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