Toilet, Toilet

Additionally, vomit and menstrual waste is sometimes disposed in toilets in western societies. The word "toilet" can be used to refer to the fixture itself or to the room containing the fixture, especially in British English. In Canadian English, the latter is euphemistically called a washroom , and in American English, a restroom or bathroom . The latter term usually refers to a room that also contains a bath tub. A room with only a toilet and a sink is sometimes called a half-bathroom or a powder room.

The dry toilet needs no plumbing for water input or evacuation, but is often coupled with some ventilation system.

A lot depends on national mores and local resources. The most common choice in the Western world is toilet paper, sometimes used in conjunction with the bidet. (See Toilet paper and Anal cleansing for a discussion of the many alternatives used through history and in different cultures.) In the Middle East and some countries in Asia, and South Asian countries such as India and Pakistan, the custom is to use water, either with or without toilet paper. Traditionally, the left hand is used for this, for which reason that hand is considered impolite or polluted in many eastern countries.

Conveniences being the collective term for male and female designated toilets, convenience (singular) usually acquiring a gender attribute.

Between the categories of outright free and outright pay toilets, there is a grey area of toilets where a fee is expected, but not enforced. A charge levied in the UK during the mid-20th century was one British penny, hence the generally adopted term "spend a penny" meaning to use the toilet.

Additionally, some can be sunk into the ground (and thereby made inoperable), for the periods that they are not needed. The idea behind this is that some people do not like the sight of a public toilet in the street, and they are more easily hidden than repeatedly moved. This type is typically installed in entertainment areas and made operational during weekend evenings and nights.

Many toilets can be cleaned on the spot, or at a central location in the case of a mobile toilet or urinal. In Europe, public toilets are also set up for cities as a compensation for advertising permits. They are part of a street furniture contract between the out-of-home advertising company and the city council. The reason for this combination is the shortage in city budgets.

Some European public toilets may be marked "WC" ; while in the Philippines the label "CR" (comfort room) is common.

These are wide enough to allow the entry and use by a person in a wheelchair, and often feature hand-holds or grab bars bolted to the wall, enabling the person to maneuver onto the toilet, if necessary. Some countries have legal requirements for the accessibility of toilets.

For example, people with children of the opposite sex must choose between bringing the child into a toilet not designated for the child's gender, or entering a toilet not designated for one's own. Men caring for babies often find that only the women's washroom has been fitted with a change table. People with disabilities who need assistance to use the restroom have an additional problem if their helper is the opposite sex.

Transgendered people have been arrested for using not only toilets that correspond to their gender of identification, but also ones that correspond to the sex they were born with.

Older aircraft use a lavatory tank below the toilet (normally hidden by a hinged "flapper valve" at the bottom of the toilet bowl) and a pump to filter and recirculate lavatory fluid to facilitate flushing.

Because most of a households' flushes are for urine, dual flush toilets can save a significant amount of water.

The other through-penetration is for the drain pipe. The fresh water supply line requires routine firestopping. The drain pipe, however, is exempt from firestopping in many building codes, particularly when noncombustible piping is used, because the penetration terminates on the unexposed side in a ceramic bowl filled with water, which can withstand significant fires. Intumescent firestops are often used, in the event plastic pipes are used for toilet drains, so that the melting plastic pipe is choked off in the event of an accidental fire. It is, however, customary to fill the metallic drain pipe annulus with rockwool packing. Even with the best of intentions, it would be difficult for the firestopper to install a sealant, because he is not allowed or inclined to remove the flange, which is what is partially used to support the drain pipe below during the installation process.

Some of the houses there have a drain running directly beneath them, and some of these had a cubicle over the drain. The people of the Harappan civilization in Pakistan and north-western India had water-flushing toilets in each house that were linked with drains covered with burnt clay bricks. Around the 18th century BC, toilets started to appear in Minoan Crete; Egypt in the time of the Pharaohs and ancient Persia. In Roman civilization, toilets were sometimes part of public bath houses.

But sitting toilets only came into general use in the mid-19th century in the western world. A History of Technology, Vol.IV: The Industrial Revolution, 1750-1850. (C. Singer, E Holmyard, A Hall, T. Williams eds) Oxford Clarendon Press, pps. 507-508, 1958 The Roman toilets were probably elevated to raise them above open sewers, rather than for sitting. Squat toilets are still used by the majority of the world's population.

L. Troise, and D. K. Todd. The Water Encyclopedia. Lewis Publishers, Inc. Second Edition, 1990, ISBN 0873711203, table 5-25 . One system used to combat this is the " yellow mellow " system, in which a toilet is only flushed when it contains solid waste, and not only one person's-worth of urine. The custom is often described by the phrase "If it's yellow, let it mellow. If it's brown, flush it down." This system reduces the frequency of toilet flushing significantly.

A dual-flush toilet has two flush options: one button or handle flushes the entire tank, for solid waste, and an alternate handle or button uses only part of the water in the tank, for smaller loads. Unlike the yellow mellow system, this does not decrease the frequency of flushes, but instead decreases the quantity of water used by flushing for smaller loads.

National Gallery Catalogues (new series): The British School , Judy Egerton, p. 167, 1998, ISBN 1857091701, describing the famous Hogarth painting The Toilette from the Marriage A-la-Mode series.

All OED (1st edn) for "toilet". The sequence of recorded first use may not exactly match the sequence in which they actually came into use Through the 18th century, everywhere in the English-speaking world, these various uses centred around a lady's draped dressing-table remained dominant.

When referring to the room or the actual piece of equipment, the word toilet is often substituted with other euphemisms and dysphemisms (See toilet humor ).

Early ships were not fitted with toilets but the crew would urinate over the side of the vessel.

In Mexico and Finland, WC is a very common term for indicating a public toilet.

Cisterns operated by a push button are available in single (6L) or dual flush (3L/6L) depending on the range. The majority of cisterns are now internal overflow; this means in the event of a failure, the water will be contained within the unit. A flushing trough is an apparatus which serves several WC pans from one long cistern body. It is designed in this way to allow more frequent flushing. These can be found in schools, colleges and public toilets although are becoming less common.

Source: Wikipedia > Toilet