Toilets I Saw

ecology considerations, 3rd report from my trip to Israel

In 2008, I made a trip to Israel, likely to be my once in a lifetime trip.  The trip cost three thousand dollars and was paid for through the posthumous generosity of my  friend Raven.  The ostensive occasion of the trip was the wedding of an extended family member, but I also toured around the country, much too quickly.

As a tourist, I had the usual reactions that tourists to Israel typically report.  I became very prayerful.  Some of the longest prayers I ever said in my life I said here and there in Israel, not only at the sacred Wall.   I also loved the tourist dairy breakfasts, and all the food, and the people, the oldness, the sights and sounds. All of that liking was predictable, but there were two things I really liked that surprised me.

I liked having a pocketful of Israeli change, examining the coins and learning what each one was. There were in my life small previous signs that I liked coins, but when I came home from Israel, I became a full fledged coin collector, wanting not investor coins, but the pocket change of the world, coins to learn from.

The other big surprise like for me were the toilets.  I saw (and used) the very oldest toilet I had ever seen, and I saw and used the most modern ecologically innovative toilets I'd ever seen. This encounter surprised me, as I say, and I had a big reaction of interest.

The very old toilet was a two part model with the water cabinet displayed high up on the wall, and a long literal piece of chain was the activator.  This was why, when I was a child, learning how to use the toilet, my mother would say, "Pull the chain," and "Did you pull the chain?"  when the activator was in fact a handle, not a chain.  In the olden days, the activator was a chain.

The throne part of this old toilet had been retrofitted to have also a modern handle activator. Still, I found it remarkable.  This surprise antique was located at the hostel in Jaffa, which was an old building, and had a beautiful old tile floor in the dorm in which I stayed, and old decorations on the walls.  

The surprising ecologically innovative toilet that I used was represented in all three of the cities I stayed in, Jaffa, Haifa, and Jerusalem, in modern buildings, and some older buildings, too.  This was the dual flush toilet. In spite of my surprise, I knew immediately what was being offered: a choice of flush, a big flush or a small flush.  

Two triangles made of hard plastic showed themselves, emerging from the porcelain.  One was black and one was white.  The black was for flushing solid waste, and the white for liquid.  Only if the activators had been brown and yellow, would the directions been more explicit.  But to me it was obvious, and fascinating, and such a good idea.

I had not travelled much and I was impressed by the phenomenon of being in another location. The kaleidoscope of sights and sounds was strongly with me, throughout my trip.  But a gnawing from the territories was also with me, specifically from Gaza when I started think how great the dual flush toilets were, I was quite aware of a contrast.  I had read about Gaza's deteriorating sewage infrastructure.  I'd read about the calamitous collapse of an aged sewage cistern, causing a deadly avalanche on a village. I'd read about sickening seepage into the Mediterranean from recurring points of disrepair.  

When I got home from my trip, I did a ton of follow-up research.  I looked up everything from a few street names I'd wondered about, to a delicious food item, to the artwork I saw in a little museum, to a patch of cemetery I noticed  at the edge of a park,  to the wedding customs that were observed in my family, to the coins and paper money I'd brought back in my pockets, to the old toilet and the dual flush toilets, as well as the contrasting sewage issues in neighboring Gaza.  My trip was not over when I got home because its contents lingered, and served me as a writer, like the daffodils of the British poet.

Apparently, the origin of the dual flush toilet was a matter of dispute, and rivalry between Israel and Australia.  Probably, its invention was simultaneous, or approximately so, in more than one place, I thought, after examining numerous  accounts. But the invention had clearly spread, in that part of the world, and not in the western hemisphere.

In Israel, I learned, the new construction of a public building was required by law to have dual flush toilets.  I saw these toilets offered for sale, online, by several distributers, and more than one manufacturer.  I also saw a kit offered to retrofit an older toilet.  

I read forty reviews.  I read a dozen reviews by plumbing professionals who assessed these toilets with appreciation.  I also read two dozen reviews by lay people, mainly tourists who'd encountered the dual flush toilets in the course of their travels to a foreign country, and these reviews were mixed.  Many of these reviewers were confused by the two activators and did not quickly figure out what was being offered - in contrast to my experience.