Toilet#Lavatory

The number of different types of toilets used worldwide is large,{{cite book|url=http://www.eawag.ch/en/department/sandec/publications/compendium/|title=Compendium of Sanitation Systems and Technologies|last2=Ulrich|first2=Lukas|last3=Lüthi|first3=Christoph|last4=Reymond |first4=Philippe|last5=Zurbrügg |first5=Chris|publisher=Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag)|isbn=978-3-906484-57-0|edition= 2nd |location=Duebendorf, Switzerland|last1=Tilley|first1=Elizabeth|year=2014}}{{cite book|url=http://www.susana.org/en/resources/library/details/1993|title=A Collection of Contemporary Toilet Designs|date=2014|publisher=EOOS and WEDC, Loughborough University, UK|isbn=978-1-84380-155-9|pages=40|last1=Shaw|first1=R.}} but can be grouped by:

• Having water (which seals in odor) or not (which usually relates to e.g. flush toilet versus dry toilet)
• Being used in a sitting or squatting position (sitting toilet versus squat toilet)
• Being located in the private household or in public (toilet room versus public toilet)

Toilets can be designed to be used either in a standing (urinatiing), sitting or in a squatting posture (defecating). Each type has its benefits. The "sitting toilet", however, is essential for those who are movement impaired. Sitting toilets are often referred to as "western-style toilets".Gershenson, Olga; Penner, Barbara (2009): [https://books.google.com/books?id=VN5kFuQQ7lsC&dq=%22squat+toilet%22+common&pg=PA117 Ladies and gents – Public toilets and gender.] Temple University Press, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Sitting toilets are more convenient than squat toilets for people with disabilities and the elderly.

People use different toilet types based on the country that they are in. In developing countries, access to toilets is also related to people's socio-economic status. Poor people in low-income countries often have no toilets at all and resort to open defecation instead. This is part of the sanitation crisis which international initiatives (such as World Toilet Day) draw attention to.{{Cite web|url=http://www.un.org/en/events/toiletday/|title=World Toilet Day 19 November|website=United Nations|access-date=14 November 2017}}

{{Main|Flush toilet}}

File:Toilet_370x580.jpg

File:Toilet-flush.ogg

A typical flush toilet is a ceramic bowl (pan) connected on the "up" side to a cistern (tank) that enables rapid filling with water, and on the "down" side to a drain pipe that removes the effluent. When a toilet is flushed, the sewage should flow into a septic tank or into a system connected to a sewage treatment plant. However, in many developing countries, this treatment step does not take place.

The water in the toilet bowl is connected to a pipe shaped like an upside-down U. One side of the U channel is arranged as a siphon tube longer than the water in the bowl is high. The siphon tube connects to the drain. The bottom of the drain pipe limits the height of the water in the bowl before it flows down the drain. The water in the bowl acts as a barrier to sewer gas entering the building. Sewer gas escapes through a vent pipe attached to the sewer line.

The amount of water used by conventional flush toilets usually makes up a significant portion of personal daily water usage.{{Cite web |title=How Much Water Does Your Toilet Use? |url=https://www.savingwater.org/indoors/toilets/how-much-water-does-your-toilet-use/ |access-date=2024-10-24 |website=Saving Water Partnership |language=en-US}} However, modern low flush toilet designs allow the use of much less water per flush. Dual flush toilets allow the user to select between a flush for urine or feces, saving a significant amount of water over conventional units. One type of dual flush system allows the flush handle to be pushed up for one kind of flush and down for the other,{{cite web|title=Tucson lawmaker wants tax credits for water-conserving toilet|url=http://cronkitenews.jmc.asu.edu/?p=315|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://archive.today/20070810105602/http://cronkitenews.jmc.asu.edu/?p=315|archive-date=2007-08-10|access-date=2008-03-12|publisher=Cronkite News Service}} whereas another design is to have two buttons, one for urination and the other for defecation. In some places, users are encouraged not to flush after urination. Flushing toilets can be plumbed to use greywater (water that was previously used for washing dishes, laundry, and bathing) rather than potable water (drinking water). Some modern toilets pressurize the water in the tank, which initiates flushing action with less water usage.

Another variant is the pour-flush toilet. This type of flush toilet has no cistern but is flushed manually with a few liters of a small bucket. The flushing can use as little as {{convert|2|–|3|L}}. This type of toilet is common in many Asian countries. The toilet can be connected to one or two pits, in which case it is called a "pour flush pit latrine" or a "twin pit pour flush to pit latrine". It can also be connected to a septic tank.{{Cite web |title=Some Squat Toilets in Asia Can Be Scary -- Here's How to Survive Them! |url=https://www.tripsavvy.com/squat-toilets-in-asia-1458304 |access-date=2024-10-24 |website=TripSavvy |language=en}}

Flush toilets on ships are typically flushed with seawater.

File:Twin Pits for Pour Flush diagram.svg

Twin pit latrines use two pits used alternatively, when one pit gets full over a few months or years.{{cite book|author=Tilley, E. | author2=Ulrich, L. | author3=Lüthi, C. | author4=Reymond, Ph. | author5=Zurbrügg, C. | title=Compendium of Sanitation Systems and Technologies|date=2014|publisher=Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag)|location=Dübendorf, Switzerland|isbn=978-3-906484-57-0|edition=2|url=http://www.sandec.ch/compendium}} The pits are of an adequate size to accommodate a volume of waste generated over one or two years. This allows the contents of the full pit enough time to transform into a partially sanitized, soil-like material that can be manually excavated.{{cite web |title=Single Ventilated Improved Pit – Akvopedia |url=https://akvopedia.org/wiki/Single_Ventilated_Improved_Pit |website=akvopedia.org |access-date=21 May 2020}}{{CC-notice|cc=by3}} There is a risk of groundwater pollution when pits are located in areas with a high or variable water table, and/or fissures or cracks in the bedrock.

File:Vacuum toilet in a train.jpg

A vacuum toilet is a flush toilet that is connected to a vacuum sewer system, and removes waste by suction. They may use very little water (less than a quarter of a liter per flush) or none,{{cite web |title=What are Vacuum Toilets?|url=https://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-vacuum-toilets.htm |website=wiseGEEK|date=22 July 2023 }} (as in waterless urinals). Some flush with coloured disinfectant solution rather than with water.{{cite web|title=Aircraft Toilets/Toilets of the World|url=https://toilet-guru.com/aircraft.php|website=Toilets of the World|language=en}} They may be used to separate blackwater and greywater, and process them separately{{cite web |title=Vacuum Toilet {{!}} SSWM – Find tools for sustainable sanitation and water management! |url=https://sswm.info/water-nutrient-cycle/water-use/hardwares/toilet-systems/vacuum-toilet |website=sswm.info |language=en}} (for instance, the fairly dry blackwater can be used for biogas production, or in a composting toilet).

Passenger train toilets, aircraft lavatories, bus toilets, and ships with plumbing often use vacuum toilets. The lower water usage saves weight, and avoids water slopping out of the toilet bowl in motion.{{cite web |title=How does the toilet in a commercial airliner work? |url=https://science.howstuffworks.com/transport/flight/modern/question314.htm |website=HowStuffWorks |language=en |date=1 April 2000}} Aboard vehicles, a portable collection chamber is used; if it is filled by positive pressure from an intermediate vacuum chamber, it need not be kept under vacuum.{{cite web |title=EVAC Bus Vacuum Toilet |url=https://www.evac-train.com/products/vacuum-toilet-systems/evac-bus-toilet/ |website=Evac GmbH}}

A floating toilet is essentially a toilet on a platform built above or floating on the water. Instead of excreta going into the ground they are collected in a tank or barrel. To reduce the amount of excreta that needs to hauled to shore, many use urine diversion. The floating toilet was developed for residents without quick access to land or connection to a sewer systems.[https://web.archive.org/web/20090625015110/http://www.adb.org/Water/Photos/CAM/floating-toilets/Default.asp "Sample Designs: Floating UDD Toilets"]. Asian Development Bank. It is also used in areas subjected to prolonged flooding.{{Cite web |url=http://www.nationmultimedia.com/national/Govt-Bt900bn-needed-30168866.html |title=Article, Govt: Bt900bn needed (in Thailand), The Nation October 31, 2011 |access-date=September 6, 2012 |archive-date=September 6, 2012 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120906183531/http://www.nationmultimedia.com/national/Govt-Bt900bn-needed-30168866.html |url-status=dead }} The need for this type of toilet is high in areas like Cambodia.Cain, Geoffrey. (April 19, 2010). [http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/asia/100416/cambodia-health-floating-toilets "Floating toilets to clean up Cambodia's act"]. Global Post.

{{excerpt|Dry toilet|paragraphs=1|file=no}}

{{excerpt|pit latrine|paragraphs=1|file=no}}

{{anchor|Vault toilet}}

A vault toilet is a non-flush toilet with a sealed container (or vault) buried in the ground to receive the excreta, all of which is contained underground until it is removed by pumping. A vault toilet is distinguished from a pit latrine because the waste accumulates in the vault instead of seeping into the underlying soil.

{{excerpt|Urine-diverting dry toilet|paragraphs=1|file=no}}

{{excerpt|Portable toilet|paragraphs=1|file=no}}

{{excerpt|Chemical toilet|paragraphs=1,2|file=no}}

The pig toilet, which consists of a toilet linked to a pigsty by a chute, is still in use to a limited extent.{{Cite book |date=2012-11-14 |title=Environmental History of Water: Global Views on Community Water Supply and ... – Petri S. Juuti – Google Books |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=x7Ov-mVPjZ0C |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121114063115/https://books.google.com/books?id=x7Ov-mVPjZ0C |archive-date=2012-11-14 |access-date=2022-11-06 |page=40|isbn=9781843391104 |last1=Juuti |first1=Petri |last2=Katko |first2=Tapio |last3=Vuorinen |first3=H. |publisher=IWA }} It was common in rural China, and was known in Japan, Korea, and India. The fish pond toilet depends on the same principle, of livestock (often carp) eating human excreta directly.

{{excerpt|Flying toilet|paragraphs=1|file=no}}

{{excerpt|Squat toilet|paragraphs=1|file=no}}

{{gallery

|File:Dolmabahce Toilette2.jpg|At Topkapı Palace, Turkey

|File:Lower NTK Estate old squat toilet.jpg|Old-style squat toilet (Hong Kong)

|File:French Squatter Toilet.jpg|In France

|File:Squattoilet.jpg|Porcelain squat toilet with water tank for flushing (Wuhan, China)

||Japanese-style squat toilet with automatic sensor

|align=center}}

{{main|Urination}}

File:Peeing .jpg

There are cultural differences in socially accepted and preferred voiding positions for urination around the world: in the Middle East and Asia, the squatting position is more prevalent, while in the Western world the standing and sitting position are more common.{{cite web|author=Y. de Jong|title=Influence of voiding posture on urodynamic parameters in men: a literature review (in Dutch)|url=http://www.mednet.nl/wosmedia/1718/mictiehouding_tvu.pdf|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140714200739/http://www.mednet.nl/wosmedia/1718/mictiehouding_tvu.pdf|archive-date=July 14, 2014|access-date=2014-07-02|publisher=Nederlands Tijdschrift voor urologie}}

{{main|Anal cleansing}}

File:Bidet weiss.jpg of the traditional type, available in many southern European and South American countries.Roberto Zapperi: Zu viel Moralismus macht den Körper schmutzig., in: FAZ, 24 aprile 2010.]]

In the Western world, the most common method of cleaning the anal area after defecation is by toilet paper or sometimes by using a bidet. In many Muslim countries, the facilities are designed to enable people to follow Islamic toilet etiquette {{transliteration|ar|ALA|Qaḍāʼ al-Ḥājah}}.{{Citation |url=http://www.msawest.com/islam/fundamentals/pillars/prayer/prescribed/pp1_2.html |publisher=MSA West Compendium of Muslim Texts |last=Shu'aib |first=Tajuddin B. |work=The Prescribed Prayer Made Simple |title=Qadaahul Haajah (Relieving Oneself) |access-date=2009-03-10 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://archive.today/20090819060534/http://www.msawest.com/islam/fundamentals/pillars/prayer/prescribed/pp1_2.html |archive-date=2009-08-19 }} For example, a bidet shower may be plumbed in. The left hand is used for cleansing, for which reason that hand is considered impolite or polluted in many Asian countries.{{Cite web|url=http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-advice/eight-surprisingly-rude-gestures-to-avoid-when-travelling/story-e6frfqfr-1226764916221|title=Eight surprisingly rude gestures to avoid when travelling|date=November 21, 2013|website=News.com.au|access-date=17 July 2016|archive-date=26 October 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151026165540/http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-advice/eight-surprisingly-rude-gestures-to-avoid-when-travelling/story-e6frfqfr-1226764916221|url-status=dead}}

The use of water in many Christian countries is due in part to the biblical toilet etiquette which encourages washing after all instances of defecation.{{cite book|title=Contemporary Biology: Concepts and Implications|first=Mary|last= E. Clark|year= 2006| isbn= 9780721625973|publisher=University of Michigan Press}} The bidet is common in predominantly Catholic countries where water is considered essential for anal cleansing,{{cite book|title=Contemporary Biology: Concepts and Implications|first=Mary|last= E. Clark|year= 2006| isbn= 9780721625973| page =613 |publisher=University of Michigan Press|quote= Douching is commonly practiced in Catholic countries. The bidet ... is still commonly found in France and other Catholic countries.}}{{cite book |date= 2013|title= Made in Naples. Come Napoli ha civilizzato l'Europa (e come continua a farlo)|trans-title=Made in Naples. How Naples civilised Europe (And still does it)|language=it |publisher= Addictions-Magenes Editoriale|isbn=978-8866490395}} and in some traditionally Orthodox and Lutheran countries such as Greece and Finland respectively, where bidet showers are common.{{Cite web|url=https://en.biginfinland.com/hose-always-next-every-finnish-toilet/|title=A hose: the strange device next to every Finnish toilet|first=Santiago|last=H|date=July 8, 2014}}

There are toilets on the market with seats having integrated spray mechanisms for anal and genital water sprays (see for example Toilets in Japan). This can be useful for the elderly or people with disabilities.

{{Main|Accessible toilet}}

An accessible toilet is designed to accommodate people with physical disabilities, such as age related limited mobility or inability to walk due to impairments. Additional measures to add toilet accessibility are providing more space and grab bars to ease transfer to and from the toilet seat, including enough room for a caregiver if necessary.

{{excerpt|Public toilet|paragraphs=1|file=no}}

In prisons, inmates may utilize toilets and the associated plumbing to communicate messages and pass products.{{cite book |last1=Sifakis |first1=Carl |title=The Encyclopedia of American Prisons |date=30 June 2014 |publisher=Infobase Publishing |isbn=978-1-4381-2987-7 |page=172 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ObIQUpJxHZYC |access-date=27 May 2024 |language=en |chapter=Muling}}{{cite book |last1=Jackson |first1=Joe |last2=Burke (Jr.) |first2=William F. |title=Dead Run: The Untold Story of Dennis Stockton and America's Only Mass Escape from Death Row |date=1999 |publisher=Times Books |isbn=978-0-8129-3206-5 |page=124 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZVcrAAAAYAAJ |language=en}} The acoustic properties of communicating through the toilet bowl, known as toilet talk, potty talk,{{cite book |last1=Lombardo |first1=A. G. |title=Graffiti Palace |date=13 March 2018 |publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux |isbn=978-0-374-16591-8 |pages=179–181 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jU1LDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA180 |access-date=27 May 2024 |language=en}} toilet telephone{{cite book |last1=Jabusch |first1=David M. |last2=Littlejohn |first2=Stephen W. |title=Elements of Speech Communication |date=1995 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=978-0-939693-37-5 |page=74 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Us0eyUlKoKAC|access-date=27 May 2024 |language=en}} is influenced by flush patterns and bowl water volumes. Prisoners may also send binary signals by ringing the sewage or water pipes.{{cite book |last1=Kaminski |first1=Marek M. |title=Games Prisoners Play: The Tragicomic Worlds of Polish Prison |date=5 June 2018 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-0-691-18714-3 |page=105 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=i_9ZDwAAQBAJ |access-date=27 May 2024 |language=en}} Toilet talk enables communication for those in solitary confinement.{{cite book |last1=Elliott |first1=Elizabeth M. |title=Security, With Care: Restorative Justice and Healthy Societies |date=21 May 2020 |publisher=Fernwood Publishing |isbn=978-1-77363-320-6 |page=127 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fQB0EAAAQBAJ&dq=%22toilet+talk%22+%22prison%22&pg=PA127 |access-date=27 May 2024 |language=en |chapter=hapter 7. Geometry of Individuals and Relations}} Toilets have been subject to wiretaps.{{cite news |last1=Banks |first1=Gabrielle |title=Inmates' toilet talk can be trouble |url=https://www.heraldnet.com/news/inmates-toilet-talk-can-be-trouble/ |access-date=27 May 2024 |work=Pittsburgh Post-Gazette |date=6 July 2007}}

{{Further|WASH#Health aspects}}

File:2011_07-Internal_ReinventTheToilet_Animation.webm]]

To this day, 1 billion people in developing countries have no toilets in their homes and are resorting to open defecation instead.{{Cite web|url=http://worldtoilet.org/|title=World Toilet|last=manic|website=World Toilet|language=en-US|access-date=2016-03-07}} Therefore, it is one of the targets of Sustainable Development Goal 6 to provide toilets (sanitation services) to everyone by 2030.{{cite web|title=Goal 6: Clean water and sanitation|url=http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/sustainable-development-goals/goal-6-clean-water-and-sanitation.html|access-date=28 September 2015|website=UNDP}}{{Cite web |title=Work of the Statistical Commission pertaining to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (A/RES/71/313) |url=https://undocs.org/Home/Mobile?FinalSymbol=A%2FRES%2F71%2F313&Language=E&DeviceType=Desktop&LangRequested=False |access-date=2022-11-06 |website=undocs.org}}

Toilets are one important element of a sanitation system, although other elements are also needed: transport, treatment, disposal, or reuse. Diseases, including Cholera, which still affects some 3 million people each year, can be largely prevented when effective sanitation and water treatment prevents fecal matter from contaminating waterways, groundwater, and drinking water supplies.

{{Further|History of water supply and sanitation}}

File:Lothal - bathroom structure.jpg of the Indus Valley Civilisation in around 2350 BC.]]

File:Ostia-Toilets.JPG public toilets, Ostia Antica.]]

File:කළුදිය පොකුණ 1.jpg archeological site, Sri Lanka.]]

File:Green_glazed_toilet_with_pigsty_model._Eastern_Han_dynasty_25_-_220_CE.jpg, China, Eastern Han dynasty 25–220 AD]]

The fourth millennium BC would witness the invention of clay pipes, sewers, and toilets, in Mesopotamia, with the city of Uruk today exhibiting the earliest known internal pit toilet, from {{Circa|3200 BC}}.{{Cite book|last=Mitchell|first=Piers D.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HU6rCwAAQBAJ&q=Tell+Asmar,+Northern+Palace,+sewer&pg=PA30|title=Sanitation, Latrines and Intestinal Parasites in Past Populations|date=2016-03-03|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-317-05953-0|pages=30|language=en}} The Neolithic village of Skara Brae contains examples, {{Circa|3000 BC}}, of internal small rooms over a communal drain, rather than pit.{{Cite news|last=Ailes|first=Emma|date=2013-04-19|title=Scotland and the indoor toilet|language=en-GB|work=BBC News|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-22214728|access-date=2020-05-18}} The Indus Valley Civilisation in northwestern India and Pakistan was home to the world's first known urban sanitation systems. In Mohenjo-Daro ({{Circa|2800 BC}}), toilets were built into the outer walls of homes.{{Citation needed|date=May 2020}} These toilets had vertical chutes, via which waste was disposed of into cesspits or street drains.Teresi et al. 2002 In the Indus city of Lothal ({{Circa|2350 BC}}), houses belonging to the upper class had private toilets connected to a covered sewer network{{cite book|title=Evolution of Sanitation and Wastewater Technologies Through the Centuries|page=32|year=2014|editor=Andreas N. Angelakis|isbn=9781780404844|publisher=International Water Association Publishing}} constructed of brickwork held together with a gypsum-based mortar that emptied either into the surrounding water bodies or alternatively into cesspits, the latter of which were regularly emptied and cleaned.{{Cite web|last1=Khan|first1=Saifullah|title=1 Chapter 2 Sanitation and wastewater technologies in Harappa/Indus valley civilization (ca. 2600–1900 BC) |url=https://www.academia.edu/5937322 |publisher=Academia.edu |access-date=9 April 2015}}

Other very early toilets that used flowing water to remove the waste are found at Skara Brae in Orkney, Scotland, which was occupied from about 3100 BC until 2500 BC. Some of the houses there have a drain running directly beneath them, and some of these had a cubicle over the drain. Around the 18th century BC, toilets started to appear in Minoan Crete, Pharaonic Egypt, and ancient Persia.

In 2012, archaeologists found what is believed to be Southeast Asia's earliest latrine during the excavation of a Neolithic village in the {{ill|Rạch Núi archaeological site|vi|Di tích khảo cổ học Rạch Núi|vertical-align=sup}}, southern Vietnam. The toilet, dating back 1500 BC, yielded important clues about early Southeast Asian society. More than 30 coprolites, containing fish and shattered animal bones, provided information on the diet of humans and dogs, and on the types of parasites each had to contend with.{{Cite web |date=2012-06-14 |title=Old toilet find offers civilsation start clues |url=https://www.stuff.co.nz/science/7105724/Old-toilet-find-offers-civilsation-start-clues |access-date=2022-11-06 |website=Stuff |language=en}}{{Cite web |date=2021-04-28 |title=Time capsule – Life & Style – Vietnam News {{!}} Politics, Business, Economy, Society, Life, Sports – VietNam News |url=https://vietnamnews.vn/life-style/226384/time-capsule.html |access-date=2022-11-06 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210428193142/https://vietnamnews.vn/life-style/226384/time-capsule.html |archive-date=2021-04-28 }}{{Cite web |date=2012-06-17 |title=Asia's First Toilet Discovered In Southern Vietnam |url=https://www.asianscientist.com/2012/06/in-the-lab/asia-first-toilet-discovered-in-southern-vietnam-rach-nui-2012/ |access-date=2022-11-06 |website=Asian Scientist Magazine |language=en-US}}

In Sri Lanka, the techniques of the construction of toilets and lavatories developed over several stages. A highly developed stage in this process is discernible in the constructions at the Abhayagiri complex in Anuradhapura where toilets and baths dating back to 2nd century BC to 3rd century CE are known, later forms of toilets from 5th century CE to 13th century CE in Polonnaruwa and Anuradhapura had elaborate decorative motifs carved around the toilets.{{cite journal |last1=W.I. |first1=Siriweera |title=Sanitation and healthcare in ancient Sri Lanka |journal=The Sri Lanka Journal of the Humanities |date=14 December 2004 |url=http://dlib.pdn.ac.lk/bitstream/123456789/2764/1/W.I.%20Siriweera%20-%20Vol.%20XXIX%20%26%20XXX%20Nos.%201%20%26%202.pdf |access-date=14 December 2004}}A History of Medicine in Sri Lanka From the Earliest Times to 1948, Page 151, By C. G. Uragoda (1987), University of MichiganAbhayagiri Vihara at Anuradhapura – Page 46, Tī. Jī Kulatuṅga (1999), Central Cultural Fund, Ministry of Cultural and Religious Affairs, University of Virginia Several types of toilets were developed; these include lavatories with ring-well pits, underground terracotta pipes that lead to septic pits, urinary pits with large bottomless clay pots of decreasing size placed one above the other. These pots under urinals contained "sand, lime and charcoal" through which urine filtered down to the earth in a somewhat purified form.

In Roman civilization, latrines using flowing water were sometimes part of public bath houses. Roman latrines, like the ones pictured here, are commonly thought to have been used in the sitting position. The Roman toilets were probably elevated to raise them above open sewers which were periodically "flushed" with flowing water, rather than elevated for sitting. Romans and Greeks also used chamber pots, which they brought to meals and drinking sessions.Mattelaer, Johan J. "Some Historical Aspects of Urinals and Urine Receptacles." World Journal of Urology 17.3 (1999): 145–50. Print. Johan J. Mattelaer said, "Plinius has described how there were large receptacles in the streets of cities such as Rome and Pompeii into which chamber pots of urine were emptied. The urine was then collected by fullers." (Fulling was a vital step in textile manufacture.)

The Han dynasty in China two thousand years ago used pig toilets.

Garderobes were toilets used in the Post-classical history, most commonly found in upper-class dwellings. Essentially, they were flat pieces of wood or stone spanning from one wall to the other, with one or more holes to sit on. These were above chutes or pipes that discharged outside the castle or Manor house.Genc, Melda. "The Evolution of Toilets and Its Current State." Thesis. Middle East Technical University, 2009. Harold B. Lee Library. Brigham Young University, 2009. Web. 28 Nov. 2011. Garderobes would be placed in areas away from bedrooms because of the smell"Middle Ages Hygiene." Middle Ages. The Middle Ages Website. Web. 28 Nov. 2011. and also near kitchens or fireplaces to keep their enclosures warm.

{{gallery |File:Garderobe2.jpg|Garderobe seat openings

|File:Garderobe1.jpg|View looking down into garderobe seat opening

|File:Burg Campen Aborterker.jpg|Exterior view of garderobe at Campen Castle

|File:Toilet in Rosenborg Castle Copenhagen.jpg|Toilet in Rosenborg Castle Copenhagen

|align=center

}}

The other main way of handling toilet needs was the chamber pot, a receptacle, usually of ceramic or metal, into which one would excrete waste. This method was used for hundreds of years; shapes, sizes, and decorative variations changed throughout the centuries.Powell, Christine A. "Port Royal Chamberpots Introduction." Nautical Archaeology at Texas A&M University. Texas A&M University, 1 Dec. 1996. Web. 28 Nov. 2011. Chamber pots were in common use in Europe from ancient times, even being taken to the Middle East by medieval pilgrims.{{cite book|title=A History of the Crusades, Volume IV: The Art and Architecture of the Crusader States|year=1977|publisher=University of Wisconsin Press|isbn=978-0-299-06824-0|pages=47|author1=Setton, Kenneth M.|author2=Harry W. Hazard|name-list-style=amp}}

File:Bourdaloue_dsc02723.jpg

File:Townsend House privy - the inside.jpg

File:Commode,_Europe,_1831-1900_Wellcome_L0057869.jpg

By the Early Modern era, chamber pots were frequently made of china or copper and could include elaborate decoration. They were emptied into the gutter of the street nearest to the home.

In pre-modern Denmark, people generally defecated on farmland or other places where the human waste could be collected as fertilizer.{{cite web |url=https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/06/unexpected-viking-toilet-discovery-leads-to-controversy/ |website=Ars Technica |title=Unexpected Viking toilet discovery leads to controversy |first=Annalee |last=Newitz |date=June 22, 2017}} The Old Norse language had several terms for referring to outhouses, including garðhús (yard house), náð-/náða-hús (house of rest), and annat hús (the other house). In general, toilets were functionally non-existent in rural Denmark until the 18th century.

By the 16th century, cesspits and cesspools were increasingly dug into the ground near houses in Europe as a means of collecting waste, as urban populations grew and street gutters became blocked with the larger volume of human waste. Rain was no longer sufficient to wash away waste from the gutters. A pipe connected the latrine to the cesspool, and sometimes a small amount of water washed waste through. Cesspools were cleaned out by tradesmen, known in English as gong farmers, who pumped out liquid waste, then shovelled out the solid waste and collected it during the night. This solid waste, euphemistically known as nightsoil, was sold as fertilizer for agricultural production (similarly to the closing-the-loop approach of ecological sanitation).

In the early 19th century, public officials and public hygiene experts studied and debated sanitation for several decades. The construction of an underground network of pipes to carry away solid and liquid waste was only begun in the mid 19th-century, gradually replacing the cesspool system, although cesspools were still in use in some parts of Paris into the 20th century.{{cite book|last=La Berge|first=Ann Elizabeth Fowler|title=Mission and Method: The Early Nineteenth-Century French Public Health Movement|year=2002|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-52701-9|pages=207–9}} Even London, at that time the world's largest city, did not require indoor toilets in its building codes until after the First World War.

{{anchor|integral water closet}} The water closet, with its origins in Tudor times, started to assume its currently known form, with an overhead cistern, s-bends, soil pipes and valves around 1770. This was the work of Alexander Cumming and Joseph Bramah. Water closets only started to be moved from outside to inside of the home around 1850.{{cite book|last1=Burnett |first1=John |others= Illustrated by Christopher Powell|title=A Social History of Housing, 1815–1985|date=1986|publisher=Methuen|location=London|isbn=0416367704|page=214|edition= 2nd.}} The integral water closet started to be built into middle-class homes in the 1860s and 1870s, firstly on the principal bedroom floor and in larger houses in the maids' accommodation, and by 1900 a further one in the hallway. A toilet would also be placed outside the back door of the kitchen for use by gardeners and other outside staff such as those working with the horses. The speed of introduction was varied, so that in 1906 the predominantly working-class town of Rochdale had 750 water closets for a population of 10,000.

The working-class home had transitioned from the rural cottage, to the urban back-to-back terraces with external rows of privies, to the through terraced houses of the 1880 with their sculleries and individual external WC. It was the Tudor Walters Report of 1918 that recommended that semi-skilled workers should be housed in suburban cottages with kitchens and internal WC. As recommended floor standards waxed and waned in the building standards and codes, the bathroom with a water closet and later the low-level suite became more prominent in the home.{{cite book|last1=Burnett |first1=John |others= Illustrated by Christopher Powell|title=A Social History of Housing, 1815–1985|date=1986|publisher=Methuen|location=London|isbn=0416367704|pages=336, 337|edition= 2nd.}}

Before the introduction of indoor toilets, it was common to use the chamber pot under one's bed at night and then to dispose of its contents in the morning. During the Victorian era, British housemaids collected all of the household's chamber pots and carried them to a room known as the housemaids' cupboard. This room contained a "slop sink", made of wood with a lead lining to prevent chipping china chamber pots, for washing the "bedroom ware" or "chamber utensils". Once running water and flush toilets were plumbed into British houses, servants were sometimes given their own lavatory downstairs, separate from the family lavatory.{{cite book|title=The Victorian House|publisher=HarperCollins|last=Flanders|first=Judith|year=2003|location=London|isbn=0-00-713189-5|pages=64}} The practice of emptying one's own chamber pot, known as slopping out, continued in British prisons until as recently as 2014{{cite news|last1=Cole|first1=Paul|title=Brutal sex killer claims having to slop out cell breaches his human rights|url=http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/brutal-sex-killer-claims-having-7988459|access-date=8 January 2018|work=birminghammail|date=26 October 2014}} and was still in use in 85 cells in Ireland in July 2017.{{cite web|title=Slopping out ended in Cork Prison {{!}} Irish Penal Reform Trust (IPRT)|url=http://www.iprt.ie/contents/2937|website=www.iprt.ie|access-date=8 January 2018|language=en}}

With rare exceptions, chamber pots are no longer used. Modern related implements are bedpans and commodes, used in hospitals and the homes of invalids.

Long-established sanitary wear manufacturers in the United Kingdom include Adamsez, founded in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1880, by M.J. and S.H. Adams,{{Cite web|url=https://adamsez.com/heritage/|title = Heritage}} and Twyfords, founded in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent in 1849, by Thomas Twyford and his son Thomas William Twyford.{{Cite web|url=https://www.twyfordbathrooms.com/about-us/history/|title = History – TWYFORD BATHROOMS}}

{{Further|Dry toilet#History}}

File:Moule's earth closet design, circa 1909.jpg's earth closet design, {{Circa|1909}}]]

Before the widespread adoption of the flush toilet, there were inventors, scientists, and public health officials who supported the use of "dry earth closets" – nowadays known either as dry toilets or composting toilets.{{Cite web|title=Fordington, Biography, Rev Henry Moule, 1801–1880|url=http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~fordingtondorset/Files/FordingtonHenryMoule1801-1880.html|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110509061829/http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~fordingtondorset/Files/FordingtonHenryMoule1801-1880.html|archive-date=2011-05-09|access-date=2017-03-29|website=freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com}}

{{Further|Flush toilet#History}}

Although a precursor to the flush toilet system which is widely used nowadays was designed in 1596 by John Harington,{{citation needed|date=August 2019}} such systems did not come into widespread use until the late nineteenth century.{{citation needed|date=August 2019}} With the onset of the Industrial Revolution and related advances in technology, the flush toilet began to emerge into its modern form. A crucial advance in plumbing, was the S-trap, invented by the Scottish mechanic Alexander Cummings in 1775, and still in use today. This device uses the standing water to seal the outlet of the bowl, preventing the escape of foul air from the sewer. It was only in the mid-19th century, with growing levels of urbanisation and industrial prosperity, that the flush toilet became a widely used and marketed invention. This period coincided with the dramatic growth in the sewage system, especially in London, which made the flush toilet particularly attractive for health and sanitation reasons.

Flush toilets were also known as "water closets", as opposed to the earth closets described above. WCs first appeared in Britain in the 1880s, and soon spread to Continental Europe. In America, the chain-pull indoor toilet was introduced in the homes of the wealthy and in hotels in the 1890s. William Elvis Sloan invented the Flushometer in 1906, which used pressurized water directly from the supply line for faster recycle time between flushes.

{{See also|Toilets in Japan}}

"High-tech" toilets, which can be found in countries like Japan, include features such as automatic-flushing mechanisms; water jets or "bottom washers"; blow dryers, or artificial flush sounds to mask noises. Others include medical monitoring features such as urine and stool analysis and the checking of blood pressure, temperature, and blood sugar. Some toilets have automatic lid operation, heated seats, deodorizing fans, or automated replacement of paper toilet-seat-covers. Interactive urinals have been developed in several countries, allowing users to play video games. The "Toylet", produced by Sega, uses pressure sensors to detect the flow of urine and translates that into on-screen action.{{cite magazine|url=https://www.wired.com/2011/01/sega-urinal-games/|title='Toylet' Games in Japan's Urinals|author=Geere, Duncan.|date=6 January 2011|magazine=Wired UK|access-date=20 January 2011}}

Astronauts on the International Space Station use a space toilet with urine diversion which can recover potable water.{{Cite web|url=http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2009/may/HQ_09-096_Recycled_Water_Go.html|title=Gives Space Station Crew 'Go' to Drink Recycled Water|website=www.nasa.gov|language=en|access-date=2017-10-30}}

{{See also|Toilet (room)#Names|Outhouse#Names}}

{{anchor|Etymology|Terminology}}

File:Marriage A-la-Mode 4, The Toilette - William Hogarth.jpg's Marriage à la Mode series (1743), a young countess receives her lover, tradesmen, hangers-on, and an Italian tenor as she finishes her toiletteSee Egerton op cit]]

File:Johan Zoffany - Queen Charlotte (1744-1818) with her Two Eldest Sons - Google Art Project (cropped).jpg with her Two Eldest Sons, Johan Zoffany, 1765, (the whole painting). She is doing her toilet, with her silver-gilt toilet service on the dressing-table]]

Toilet was originally a French loanword (first attested in 1540) that referred to the {{lang|fr|toilette}} ("little cloth") draped over one's shoulders during hairdressing.{{citation |title=Oxford English Dictionary|contribution=toilet, n.|location=Oxford|publisher=Oxford University Press}}. During the late 17th century, the term came to be used by metonymy in both languages for the whole complex of grooming and body care that centered at a dressing table (also covered by a cloth) and for the equipment composing a toilet service, including a mirror, hairbrushes, and containers for powder and makeup. The time spent at such a table also came to be known as one's "toilet"; it came to be a period during which close friends or tradesmen were received as "toilet-calls".{{refn|See, e.g., the description of the Hogarth painting "The Toilette" from his Marriage à-la-mode series in Egerton{{citation |contribution=The British School |title=National Gallery Catalogues |series=New Series |last=Egerton |first=Judy |page=167 |date=1998 |isbn=1-85709-170-1 }}. or the extensive discussion of a lady's toilet in Pope.{{citation |last=Pope |first=Alexander |author-link=Alexander Pope |title=The Rape of the Lock |title-link=The Rape of the Lock |date=1717 }}.}}

The use of "toilet" to describe a special room for grooming came much later (first attested in 1819), following the French {{lang|fr|cabinet de toilet}}. Similar to "powder room", "toilet" then came to be used as a euphemism for rooms dedicated to urination and defecation, particularly in the context of signs for public toilets, as on trains. Finally, it came to be used for the plumbing fixtures in such rooms (apparently first in the United States) as these replaced chamber pots, outhouses, and latrines. These two uses, the fixture and the room, completely supplanted the other senses of the word during the 20th century except in the form "toiletries".{{refn|group=n|The French eau de toilette ("toilet water") is sometimes used as a sophisticated synonym for perfume and cologne but is generally received jokingly, as with Cosmopolitan{{'}}s parody "If it doesn't say 'eau de toilette' on the label, it most likely doesn't come from the famed region of Eau de Toilette in France and might not even come from toilets at all."}}

The word "toilet" was by etymology a euphemism, but is no longer understood as such. As old euphemisms have become the standard term, they have been progressively replaced by newer ones, an example of the euphemism treadmill at work.{{Cite book |last=Bell |first=Vicars Walker |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1-8WAAAAIAAJ&q=toilet |title=On Learning the English Tongue |date=1953 |publisher=Faber & Faber |language=en}} The choice of word relies not only on regional variation, but also on social situation and level of formality (register) or social class. American manufacturers show an uneasiness with the word and its class attributes: American Standard, the largest firm, sells them as "toilets", yet the higher-priced products of the Kohler Company, often installed in more expensive housing, are sold as commodes or closets, words which also carry other meanings. Confusingly, products imported from Japan such as TOTO are referred to as "toilets", even though they carry the cachet of higher cost and quality. Toto (an abbreviation of Tōyō Tōki, 東洋陶器, Oriental Ceramics) is used in Japanese comics to visually indicate toilets or other things that look like toilets (see Toilets in Japan).

Different dialects use "bathroom" and "restroom" (American English), "bathroom" and "washroom" (Canadian English), and "WC" (an initialism for "water closet"), "lavatory" and its abbreviation "lav" (British English). Euphemisms for the toilet that bear no direct reference to the activities of urination and defecation are ubiquitous in modern Western languages, reflecting a general attitude of unspeakability about such bodily function.{{citation needed|date=November 2019}} These euphemistic practices appear to have become pronounced following the emergence of European colonial practices, which frequently denigrated colonial subjects in Africa, Asia and South America as 'unclean'.Alison Moore, Colonial Visions of ‘Third World’ Toilets: A Nineteenth-Century Discourse That Haunts Contemporary Tourism. In Olga Gershenson and Barbara Penner (eds.), [http://tupress.temple.edu/book/0457 Ladies and Gents: Public Toilets and Gender] (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2009), 97–113.{{Cite journal|last=Anderson|first=Warwick|date=2010|title=Crap on the map, or postcolonial waste|journal=Postcolonial Studies|language=en|volume=13|issue=2|pages=169–178|doi=10.1080/13688790.2010.496436|s2cid=143947247|issn=1368-8790}}

"Crapper" was already in use{{Citation needed|date=April 2019}} as a coarse name for a toilet, but it gained currency from the work of Thomas Crapper, who popularized flush toilets in England and held several patents on toilet improvements.

"The Jacks" is Irish slang for toilet.{{cite web|title=BBC h2g2|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/place-lancashire/plain/A3225106|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://archive.today/20130628022630/http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/place-lancashire/plain/A3225106|archive-date=28 June 2013|access-date=25 June 2013}} It perhaps derives from "jacques" and "jakes", an old English term.{{cite web|url=http://www.toiletinspector.com/index.asp?pgid=166|title=Toilet Inspector|access-date=25 June 2013}}

"Loo" – The etymology of loo is obscure. The Oxford English Dictionary notes the 1922 appearance of "How much cost? Waterloo. Watercloset." in James Joyce's novel Ulysses and defers to Alan S. C. Ross's arguments that it derived in some fashion from the site of Napoleon's 1815 defeat.{{citation|title=Oxford English Dictionary|contribution=loo, n.⁴}}.{{citation|last=Ross|first=Alan S.C.|title=Blackwood's Magazine|date=October 1974|author-link=Alan S. C. Ross|pages=309–316}}. In the 1950s the use of the word "loo" was considered one of the markers of British upper-class speech, featuring in a famous essay, "U and non-U English".{{citation|last=Ross|first=Alan S.C.|title=Neuphilologische Mitteilungen|date=1954|volume=55|contribution=Linguistic Class-Indicators in Present-Day English|location=Helsinki|pages=113–149}}. "Loo" may have derived from a corruption of French {{lang|fr|l'eau}} ("water"), {{lang|fr|gare à l'eau}} – whence Scots gardy loo – ("mind the water", used in reference to emptying chamber pots into the street from an upper-story window), {{lang|fr|lieu}} ("place"), {{lang|fr|lieu d'aisance}} ("place of ease", used euphemistically for a toilet), or {{lang|fr|lieu à l'anglaise}} ("English place", used from around 1770 to refer to English-style toilets installed for travelers).{{Cite book |last=Ashenburg |first=Katherine |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/876714657 |title=The dirt on clean : an unsanitized history |date=2008 |isbn=978-1-4668-6776-5 |edition=First |location=New York |pages=138 |oclc=876714657}}{{OEtymD|loo}}. Other proposed etymologies include a supposed tendency to place toilets in room 100 (hence "loo") in English hotels,{{citation|title=Kottke|date=16 February 2005|contribution=Why do they call it the loo?|contribution-url=http://kottke.org/05/02/loo-etymology|access-date=1 August 2015}}. a sailors' dialectal corruption of the nautical term "lee" in reference to the shipboard need to urinate and defecate with the wind prior to the advent of head pumps,{{refn|group=n|Yachtsmen still tend to refer to their toilets as "loos" rather than "heads".{{citation needed|date=April 2016}}}} or the 17th-century preacher Louis Bourdaloue, whose long sermons at Paris's Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis prompted his parishioners to bring along chamber pots, and his surname was applied to the pots themselves.{{Cite web|url=http://www.muzeumnocniku.cz/en/collection/chamber-pots|title=Chamber Pots|website=Muzeum historických nočníků a toalet|access-date=17 July 2016}}

{{gallery|align=center|File:Hundertwasser toilet in Kawakawa.jpg|Men's toilet designed by artist and architect Hundertwasser

|File:Notariskantoor Valkenswaard 10.JPG|Toilet in Delftware style

|File:Wc-bus.JPG|Toilet bus in Samsun, Turkey

|File:ChildToilet.jpg|Duo toilet for child training in a banquet hall near Jerusalem

|File:Toilet in Croatian National Theater, Zagreb.jpg|Toilet in Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb, Croatia

|File:AntipoloToilet.jpg|A public toilet in Antipolo, Philippines

|File:Commode-pedestal UDDT (English) (4270556587).jpg|Instructions on using a urine-diverting dry toilet in Sri Lanka

}}

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• Community toilet scheme
• Electronic toilet
• Green train corridor
• Human right to water and sanitation
• Improved sanitation
• Sanisette
• Sulabh International Museum of Toilets
• Sustainable Sanitation Alliance
• Swachh Bharat Mission
• Toilet humour
• Toilet-related injuries and deaths
• Vermifilter toilet
• Waste management
• World Toilet Day
• World Toilet Organization – organization which focuses on toilets and sanitation at the global level
• Workers' right to access the toilet

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