Originally Posted by
wrp96
Ahh memories of the ladies room in the baggage area at Cusco airport where all the toilets had been clogged by just arrived westerners who tried to flush stuff instead of throwing it away <insert absolutely disgusting icon here>. I've learned to follow the locals.
Yeah - though I did think signage of the issue was a bit lacking around Peru (I can't remember the airport though). It is truly an alien concept to many Westerners so if a place receives many of them as tourists then they really should make more of an effort to communicate the issue!
Originally Posted by
zerolife
I probably should take a step back and scratch the part about less developed country. I was actually referring to China which isn't really a developing country anymore, and haven't been to any developing country so I don't know what type of plumbing they have. A lot of the people in China use waste basket for toilet paper. However, the toilet and plumbing (except for those squatting toilets which is basically a hole in the floor) are not much different than what we have in the US and can more than handle toilet papers. This may be different 10 or 15 years ago and that's why many people are just used to waste basket. I don't know. All I know is that based on my observation, waste basket isn't just found in Sochi but used around the world including the US despite the toilets being able to handle toilet papers.
In some areas of China you can, but in others you do still need to put toilet paper in a bin. Your post implied you always flush regardless of whether the system could take it (especially when you mention ignoring signs!), but from this I guess you mean you've always flushed it where you thought it was "allowed"?
And it's not just "developing" countries that have poor plumbing systems. I've been to places in Spain and Greece (principally the islands though), and the odd place here and there elsewhere on the continent where you shouldn't flush it either.