/ 18 November 2006

World Toilet Day seeks clean restrooms

Cut-price toilet paper, brushes and detergent are on sale to help promote clean restrooms as part of World Toilet Day on Sunday, the campaign organizer said on Saturday.

It is the fifth annual World Toilet Day, organised by the Singapore-based non-profit World Toilet Organisation (WTO), which lobbies for better toilet standards in developed and developing countries.

“We started in a small way but it is growing and growing,” WTO founder Jack Sim said.

“This year we have discounts from supermarkets.”

He said Singapore’s NTUC FairPrice and stores in Malaysia would mark the event by selling discounted toilet cleaning items over the following week.

While the sale promotes hygiene of toilets at home, the WTO is also pushing for sparkling public facilities.

“Public toilets should be as clean as your home toilet,” Sim said.

Sim said World Toilet Day could be celebrated in various ways.

“Some do it by cleaning together,” he said from Bangkok, where he was touring a school toilet as part of the World Toilet Expo.

The WTO says its 52 members in 40 countries include the Restroom Association of Singapore, the Ministry of Public Health in Thailand and the Japan Toilet Association.

The WTO’s educational arm, the World Toilet College, brought Japanese experts to Singapore earlier this year for a seminar to help the city state’s toilet cleaners brush up their skills. — AFP