I think Scott is referring to private toilets in China and not public toilets. With increased wealth the flush pedestal has become the ideal toilet in China since it stands for a higher standard of living. But when it comes to public toilets in many parts of the world, squatting toilets will always dominate. And this may have more to do with the need for hygiene and to reduce the spread of fecal borne diseases. This is where China in a way has higher standards than the West. Sitting on filthy public pedestals has become commonplace in the North and West - hardly a reflection of our high standard of living. This says more to me about the taboo driven lack of communication between users and authorities and ignorance or prejudices surrounding squatters. In France where squatters do exist, they are known as Turkish toilets. Public pedestal toilets require more frequent cleaning - something that one can see done properly eg in Japan and Singapore. The automated self-cleaning pedestals may have a future since few people in affluent countries want these jobs, nor are they paid well. But some of the automated one feel like a high risk experience if the electronics start acting up. Time will tell. The World Toilet Organisation specialises in this topic. worldtoilet.org/

Evening Scott.
The “squit” as we called it was simply a cut down version of our conventional pedestal to satisfy some cultural objections to a sitting, in the Pacific Islands in 1984. The attachments are the only pics available from that era. Notice that the drop chute was 400mm diameter !
The interesting thing was that the locals on the next project elected to take the normal 450mm pedestal. We no longer stock these as the change to western designs occurred very quickly, along with the standard adopted for diameters of pedestal throats.

Making the squit even to-day is no real issue as it is simply a revamp of any of our existing range, including separted urine bowl UD’s. This is the benefit of working in handlaid fibreglass, as any shape can be accommodated at low cost.

We have also made taller pedestals for disabled toilet rooms as well as pedestals for kindergartens.
Regards Ross

Ross,
It is a smart toile solution combining the sitting toilets and squatting toielts.For senior people, squatting is not easy.
I would be very appreciated if you could show me some pictures of your product.
best wishes
Scott

Hi, AKSanta Cruz:
Thank your for telling me your toilet invention.
Now, we just add some soil to the surface of the faeces collected in the platic bins with a lid. After around 40 days, the compost process finishes naturally.
This is a tipical method recommended by the toilet manufacturer, Separett.
Looking forward to look at your toilet pictures.
best wishes
Scott

During the 1980's I constructed some toilet pedestals we called "Squits" for a project in the Pacific Islands. They were simply a cut down version of a UDDT and satisfied the cultural differences, by being neither a western or squat toilet pedestal. The benefit of this shape was that freight costs were reduced and turn out times improved.
Regards Ross

Interesting thread. I would be very interested to learn more about the composting techniques being used, and the management protocol for composting the feces collected from the system. What are you using for your carbon material? Are you using static bins? Do you monitor temperature and moisture?

To add to the discussion about squat toilets - We have been field testing small non-urine diverting "humanure" toilets. This approach is also called container-based sanitation by some organizations. In Africa and India we just starting to develop this system for squat users and anal washers. However, making two pans requires a larger superstructure, in addition to more complicated construction to accommodate a sunken container. Our small organization has been invited by several organizations to teach humanure composting in India, but we would require a large investment to custom manufacture units suitable for washing and squatting. This said, we have some people piloting a few sit down compost toilets in India.

Last summer I was very surprised to find many western sit-down flush toilets at a number of universities and government offices in Orissa. So the idea of sitting on a toilet is spreading all over the world as flush toilets become more popular. I can't say how widespread this change is.

In Latin America, where I have travelled extensively, I have only seen sit down toilets - even over pit latrines people will build some kind of seat - except int the very poorest villages.

I have to agree with Chris here -

I have started using a "squatty potty" device at my home in California. I feel that the squatting position is much better for elimination. This said, we can approximate this posture with a step or stool, but it's not the same as squatting naturally.

Good luck!

Dr. Elesabeth:
I really want to take some time to investigate the real situation of that in Shan Xi and Guangxi.Possibly, after the apple season, I would be able to give you more information about those dry toielts.
best wishes
Scott

Dear Scott,
You said:

The disadvatage of the squatting toilets is that it looks cheap and simple, only suitable for poor people， quoated some officials as saying. In early 1990s， SEI did managed to set up a lot of squatting UDDTs in Guangxi province and they have been replaced by normal flush toilets.

Could you tell us a bit more about that?
Was that the 685,000 urine diversion dry toilet mentioned in this factsheet from GIZ from 2005?:
www.susana.org/en/resources/case-studies/details/1974

It is also mentioned in this ecosan project list from 2012 (I "inherited" this list from Christine Werner when I was at GIZ and tried to update it but it was very hard work as you can imagine (over 300 projects are listed there!)...; in 2012 we had already heard that these toilets were mostly abandoned so we changed the number of users to only 100 in that list):

GIZ (2012). Worldwide list of 324 documented ecosan projects by various organisations. Gesellschaft für internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, Eschborn, Germany
www.susana.org/en/resources/library/details/1423

The biggest one in China mentioned in this list is this one with apparently nearly 200,000 users:
Community-led water and ecosan programme, Shaanxi Province

Is that figure for number of users still roughly correct?

So what was the main reason for converting the UDDTs to flush toilets in rural China? Was it just because of the sittting versus squatting? Or more due to a rising living standard and therefore people "demanded" flush toilets?

Chris: as you mentioned the benefits of sitting versus squatting, I just wanted to point out this little report which I put together with Milli after we ran our survey on the forum about trends:

von Münch, E. Milosevic, D. (2015). Qualitative survey on squatting toilets and anal cleansing with water with a special emphasis on Muslim and Buddhist countries by using the SuSanA discussion forum. Ostella Consulting, Schwalbach, Germany
www.susana.org/en/resources/library/details/2302

About the alleged health benefits of squatting for defecation, there seems to be some anecdotal evidence for it, but nothing in highly reputable medical sources. Therefore, we had to exclude this information from the Wikipedia article on squatting toilets:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squat_toilet

See also discussion on its talk page here:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Squat_toilet#..._claims_on_wikipedia

Regards,
Elisabeth

Most Chinese offficials think China is a great, rich and strong country..we should use the best, the most sophiticated technology in China. Cheap solutions are not welcomed.That is why I do not market the squatting UDDTs any more.

Chris，

Thank you for your frank comments.

The architects are going to design muti-storey buildings for normal families, mostly, farmers.Your solution is quite good for our leaders urbaniztion plan, moving another 100 million peasants into the multi-storey buildings.

Several years ago, Arno and I did install 4 Villa 9000 connected to the solid waste pipes of the China-Sweden Erdos ecotown.It worked good.

I would liket to know your ideas about UDDTs used in the multi-storey buildings.
best wishes
Scott

Dear Scott,

Please allow me to disagree. I would say we should offer to users the most environmentally friendly and sustainable toilets that they will accept. And, if users prefer to squat, I would suggest you offer them squatting toilets, especially since some users may climb on top of the sitting toilets to squat, at the risk of breaking them, hurting themselves, or sending urine or feces in the wrong directions. In addition, the grandure of sitting like rich Westerners would certainly wear off quickly, if, deep down, they prefer to squat.

In any case, squatting is a better, more hygienic and more efficient position, which we should encourage more people to use ... not less.

By the way, I have a couple of designs for integrating UDDTs into high-rise apartment buildings, but they are not quite ready to be posted here.

Please let us know how things go.

Best wishes,
Chris

...and so they should (rich people in West, use them). Excellent!