I’ve never seen this on land in the U.S. or Europe, but on a snorkel boat in Hawaii this was the procedure. I’m sure the boat plumbing system was the bare minimum.
I guess the book was My Family And Other Animals. There certainly was a similar anecdote reported in that book. There has been a TV series based on the book.
I’ve been SCUBA diving a few times. The rule on the dive boats is alway to put the paper into the bin. Natural wastes can be emptied out into the sea without harm. But no chemicals or paper allowed.
The references to it were too fleeting, insignificant, and occasional for me to remember where I saw them.
It was only the sheer unusualness of it that made them stick in my memory at all.
We had a Brazilian house guest recently who inquired about what to do with used toilet tissue. I reassured her that it was safe to flush it.
Had always heard it was due to Latin America relying largely on cesspools for sewage treatment, and flushing toilet paper would clog the cesspool. Hence, used TP got put into the wastebasket. In areas with large numbers of newcomers from Latin America, I can attest the habit dies hard.
I leave it as an exercise for the reader to imagine the smell in an un-air conditioned restroom with a large clientèle used to the above practice…
Still not as funny as the story I heard from an oil worker working in the Mideast about finding footprints on the seats of Western-style toilets… Maybe he was pulling my leg?
We all have our own unique foibles.
I’ve seen it in the U.S. but generally in boarder crossing rest stops and quick stop or fuel station toilets. I’d been told that when the Mexican nationals cross the boarder they don’t know yet to put the soiled paper in the toilet as for something to do with inadequate sewer systems they don’t flush it in parts of Mexico.
I’ve seen this in Canada on some native reserves.
Yea, but interestingly, in some airports (either Sao Paulo or Rio’s), the bathrooms had signs saying you could/should flush the toilet paper with the toilet. And I’ve been in a couple of fancy apartments were there was no trash bin to throw the paper into, so I guess you could also flush it there.
Which makes me now wonder if it is something about older pipes and/or economics.
Granted, I’ve also been in an apartment where, if you put toilet paper in the toilet, it would eventually back up. No, it wasn’t me.
I’ve seen it in the United States many times in Houston. Mexicans do it. There’s a mexican restaurant in Casper Wyoming (that I no longer frequent) with a trash can in the stall in the men’s room.
Any place in the world where you encounter older or lower-quality plumbing is going to be in the habit of throwing used paper in the garbage. Indeed, I think that would be the global norm and we are the exceptional ones.
No, it doesn’t smell unless you leave it a long time (which you don’t.) If a piece of paper is too soiled, you will probably end up wrapping it up a bit or flushing it and hoping.
Probably not pulling your leg at all - I’ve encountered this numerous times in Russia, including on the premises of large international companies.
As for the OP: many, many parts of Eastern Europe, Greek islands (as already noted).
Some people who are used to using squat toilets are grossed out by the idea of letting thrir butts touch the seat. It’s not unheard if for them to climb up on the seat to squat. Some toilets in india are built eith footrests on either dude of the seat to facilitate such use.
I’ve encountered this practice exactly once, in the early-/mid-'70s, in a rural area in the PNW that had no infrastructure. Water came from a well, electricity came from a generator, refrigerators ran on propane, heat came from burning wood, and sewage went into a septic tank.
It was explained to me that the toilet paper would ‘clog’ the septic tank. (I’m unfamiliar with them, so I don’t know what it is to ‘clog’ them.) Nowadays there’s toilet paper that’s ‘septic safe’. Back then, either it wasn’t available or it was more expensive compared to regular paper. The used paper was burnt with the other rubbish.
We did this when I was a kid. I grew up in an Illinois steel town across the river from St. Louis. Our little frame house, built in the 30’s, had a cesspool or septic tank, I’m not sure which or the differences between them. I don’t recall any stench from the trashcan next to the toilet.
As for asians squatting on top of the toilet seat: I saw that a few times in Indonesia in 2008. Lots of homes and businesses like restaurants, shops, etc have older-stylesquat toilets. you flush them with a liter dipper of water from the cistern (called a mandi, or bath) next to the toilet. You also bathe with the dipper of water from the mandi, a washcloth and a bar of soap. The toilet serves as a drain for the whole bathroom. If you grow up with a squat toilet, climbing on top of the toilet seat and squatting would feel much more comfortable than sitting down on porcelain in a warm, damp climate where mold and all kinds of microbes thrive.
This was very common in Taiwan in the 1980’s. Being an American, when I first moved their, I just flushed it. Later it was pointed out to me by the family I lived with. I never plugged up the toilet but it was certainly something not done in general.
I don’t know about these days in Taiwan.
Lot’s of squatters in China. It was especially true in the 1980’s when modern hotels and office buildings were first going up. Back then, seat style toilets were not rare but not all that common. It’s kinda whatever you’re used to.
He wasn’t pulling your leg. My friend and I recently went to Newcastle (England) for a stag night. We stayed in a dive of a hotel. Using the toilet just after we arrived, I noticed the cistern had a sticker on the top of it with a red cross through a picture of a guy stood on the toilet, and another picture of a guy sat on a toilet with a tick next to it. We asked, and apparently East Asians sometimes get confused when they see a Western toilet for a first time 
Ignorance fought. I had thought it was just a cheap slur/urban legend.
As to the septic tank question, I grew up in a house on septic about 20-30 years ago. Other than having to pump the septic system periodically, using the toilet was no different than in any other Western-style environment. Forget how often the period was—thinking on the order of several years in-between, but a truck would come out to the house and the sludge at the bottom of the tank would be pumped out into the truck. You had to remember not to drive or put anything heavy onto the leach field, lest the pipes crack/soil compact. You also couldn’t get crazy with using harsh chemical drain cleaners—they’d kill the beneficial bacteria in the tank, I was told. Other than that, a septic tank was just like being hooked up to the county waste plant.
I’m going to have to politely disagree about the lack of smell from used TP in the can. IME, and that could just be due to Houston’s thermonuclear summers and lack of periodic maintenance at the farmer’s markets and flea markets I frequent, but it definitely smells. Perhaps in cooler climes or places where water is used to cleanse first, then TP to dry, it’s different. Plenty of signs in our area, instructing people to put TP----but not paper towels!—in the toilet.
As I pointed out above, they’re not confused. They prefer to squat and they don’t like the idea of touching the seat.
When I lived in L.A. someone in another apartment used paper towels. My apartment was last in line before the pipe went to the sewer. The paper towels this 40-Watt Club member used to wipe her bum clogged at the point where the line bent to the sewer. When people upstream ran water down the drains it backed up. I had shit flowing out of my bathtub drain and toilet.
Freakin’ idiot. :mad:
I have stayed at mountain huts where this was done. The paper just doesn’t break down as quickly as the biological waste and it saves having to dig another pit nearly as soon. The bag is tied up and thrown in the fire every day - really didnt smell much at all. These outhouses were pretty much open to the air on one side - nice view while you did your business.
Much better than having to change the barrels at an Alpine Club hut where they have to fly the stuff out. Now thats a disgusting task.