"Christian McArdle" wrote in message
...
A few years ago I visited Hong Kong, there they have automatic flushes
that detect a person sitting on the seat, then flushes when that person
gets up. Big snag

Yes. I hate those, usually found in recently refurbished airports. They
don't give you time to close the lid before the flush and they usually
manage to flush about 2 or 3 times during each usage, wasting huge amounts
of water.

The best toilet innovation I've seen is in the US (although it only partly
made up for the cubicle doors, which aren't far off having CCTV of your
movements displayed on the terminal screens). It consisted of an automatic
paper feeder that dragged a fresh bit of paper onto the seat when you
pressed a button, so you don't need to wipe the seat and delicately
balance a couple of sheets on the seat.

Christian.

When a son was posted to Germany and lived on the Durch border his daughters
were fascinated by the lavs in a particular restaurant where the seats swung
round somehow - but I can't remember the purpose. It seemed sensible at the
time ...

In Canada I was impressed by the use of grey water for flushing, this was
sixteen years ago before it had been heard of widely here.

Last weekend I was at the Battle of Bosworth (the wrong victor again) where
a new public toilet block (Green Buildings components) is flushed entirely
with low volume harvested water from an underground storage tank; hot water
is provided by Solartwin panels (like ours!); and the bright internal
lighting is pir and powered by pv.

Now that WAS impressive. I talked at length to the Leicestershire CC sites
manager who inspired us to go further in our environmental aspirations.

Mary