Middle East Office Toilets

It has never failed to amaze me about why office lavatories in the Middle East provide those little waste paper bins into which one discards the soiled toilet tissue. I am, of course, referring to Western toilets as opposed to Arabic toilets! When working in Kuwait last year we had a rather heated exchange of words in a safety meeting about the use of Western-style toilets and the toilet tissue issue.

There we all were sat around the boardroom table, partaking of slices of Lebanese pizza and pickle. One of my colleagues brought up the subject of why it is unhygienic to NOT flush the toilet paper. He stated that human shit contains disease-causing organisms, including viruses, bacteria and the eggs or larvae of parasites. He cited that the faeces retained in toilet tissue potentially could cause cholera or typhoid to exist. My colleague went on to explain that flies often are attracted to human dung and that they could carry such diseases as trachoma and Shigella dysentery.

Our Lead Engineer, a Lebanese arab, disagreed and he defended the company policy that soiled toilet tissue should be ‘wrapped up’ and discarded in the waste paper bin. There followed a heated debate with my colleague asking the poignant question that what if the individual had diarrhoea? The Lead Engineer was stumped for a moment and then said that if someone had the shits, then that person would simply have to use more tissue!

My colleague disagreed and continued to maintain that toilet paper that is not flushed down the toilet is a chronic health hazard and a sanitary nightmare. And then the Lead Engineer came out with his masterstroke; he proceeded to take a piece of paper tissue from a box and gave a running commentary of what he was doing. He started by saying that if you folded the tissue in a certain way then it would not be a problem.

So he started by folding the tissue in half. He then suggested that you now wipe your ass and proceeded to fold the tissue in half again. Continuing, he said that you once more fold that in half and ‘crumple’ the paper in your hand. At that point, the little bundle of retained shit was ready for disposal in the bin. It was quite simple really but he did not convince anyone in the room.

I am going to stop this blog now before some of you think that I am talking a lot of bullshit!