Over the years the city of Singapore has been described by many as one of the cleanest on
Earth with roads and toilets being "clean enough to eat off", which is perhaps to be
expected from a city where it's illegal to fail to flush a public toilet…
So how did this city come to have such immaculate toilets?
This can all be traced back to the work of Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore's first, and arguably
most popular, prime minister.
Lee rose to power in 1959 and continued to serve as Singapore's leader for 31 years until
he decided to step down in 1990.
When Singapore became an independent nation in 1965, Lee is noted as being instrumental
to the small city-state being able to so quickly transform itself from being a "poor port from
the bottom rungs of the third world" to being one of the most profitable and prosperous
economies on the planet.
Lee accomplished this through a series of reforms aimed at making the country an overall
nicer place to live including: • Enacting legislation to make prosecuting
corrupt officials easier as well as "relentlessly pursuing" corruption wherever he encountered
it.
• Paying civil servants decent wages to ensure the jobs would be tempting to Singapore's
best and brightest and giving them bonuses based on how well Singapore's economy does
on a yearly basis.
• Inviting foreign corporations to set up shop in his country to create reliable employment
for his citizens and foster international relations.
• Establishing the Housing and Development Board to help house residents without homes
in newly built apartments.
Further, unlike most nation's public housing, Singapore's is quite nice, places people actually
want to live.
• Drafting legislation to plant trees and clean up the city’s waterways and rivers
which were notably filthy.
Lee was so serious about making Singapore cleaner, he famously promised that if his
dream wasn't a reality by 1986 and he was still in charge, that he'd personally hunt
down whomever was responsible for the failure and shoot them.
• Creating the Water Planning Unit, which was tasked with helping the country become
less dependent on water from Malaysia, which was threatening to cut off their water supply
after Singapore gained independence.
This initiative, like so many others he enacted, was a resounding success, with Time magazine
later calling Singapore "the global paragon of water conservation."
In fact, their system is so efficient that they even can, and do, process non-potable
waste-water into high-purity drinking water.
• Finally, he imposed stiff taxes on car ownership and enacted the Clean Air Act as
well as creating the Anti-Pollution Unit, to help keep Singapore's air pollution levels
at an acceptable, healthy level.
By far Lee’s most infamous policies though were his incredibly strict rules in regards
to public cleanliness, most if not all of which, carry hefty fines if you're caught
breaking them.
For example, not flushing a public toilet is considered a crime in Singapore and if
you're caught flouting it, you will be given an on the spot fine of about 150 dollars,
more if you're a repeat offender.
Likewise, littering carries an equally heavy fine of about 300 dollars or more, depending
on the size of the item.
Smaller items like candy wrappers usually incur a lesser fine, whilst things like soda
cans can net you a trip to court and even a caning if you're caught.
Lee’s biggest bugbear, however, was chewing gum; he hated it with such a passion that
since the 1990s, gum has been outright banned in the country.
This was later (partially) repealed in 2004 and gum is now okay to be brought into the
country in small quantities and dentists are allowed to prescribe it for certain medical
conditions.
While this may seem a tad extreme, Lee’s annoyance with gum chewing wasn't without
precedent.
You see, prior to the ban in 1992, the government was spending upwards of 150,000 dollars a
year to clean it up and vandals were using it to disrupt the sensors on the country's
newly built subway trains, stopping their doors from shutting and in the process causing
huge delays.
After the ban, cases of such gum littering plummeted and the associated costs of cleaning
it up dropped to negligible levels.
If you're wondering how exactly Singapore enforces these dozens of laws, it's mostly
accomplished using hundreds of undercover police officers who have the power to issue
on the spot fines to anyone seen flouting them.
Officers are known to check toilets after they've been used and even install security
cameras if they receive multiple complaints on a particular toilet, to catch offenders
in the act.
Perhaps our favourite Singapore cleanliness fact is that many of Singapore's elevators
have "Urine Detection Devices" which will lock the doors of an elevator and summon the
police to your location to arrest you if it detects that you're relieving yourself in
one.
All of this may seem excessive, but the results speak for themselves; today, Singapore is
largely considered one of the world's leading economies and the city itself is one of the
most industrious, safe, clean, nicest to live and richest on Earth.
In fact, despite some oft’ lamented certain human rights issues, such as restriction on
freedom of speech, lack of right to privacy, and the like, Singapore frequently tops lists
of the "world's most livable cities", and is also generally considered the world's best
city for businesses.
Not bad for a place that was up until about 50 years ago or so described as a "swampy
land mass".
Bonus Facts: • There's a charity in Singapore called
the Restroom Association Singapore (RAS).
Set up in 1998 by a man called Jack Sim, who later went on to found the World Toilet Organization
(WTO), RAS has backed numerous campaigns to educated the public about the benefits of
toilet cleanliness and even offers awards to exceptionally clean restrooms in the public
and private sectors.
Their stated mission is to, among other things, "investigate and find out the root cause of
dirty toilets.
We must identify the needs of various users including tourists and foreign workers so
as to promote better designed toilets that cater to these needs.
We must constantly source for the best practices in cleanliness, design and maintenance of
public toilets and review our local standards.
Together with the government and other strategic partners, we must continue to raise awareness
among the community on public health issues and educate the users on good toilet etiquette."
Sim was reportedly inspired to start the RAS when he heard Lee’s successor, Goh Chok
Tong say "we should measure our graciousness according to the cleanliness of our public
toilets".
Today, Singapore's toilet facilities are the envy of the modern world and Sim has used
his clout in the world of toilets to help bring safe, clean toilet facilities to millions
in the third world through the WTO.
Sims has since earned the rather awesome honor of being called "a Hero of the Environment"
by Time magazine.
Not bad for a guy who just wants everyone to have a clean toilet to pee and poop in.
• Ever wonder why toilets are sometimes called “the crapper”?
Probably not as you likely assume you already know the answer.
But stick with us, this is actually kind of interesting.
It all started with U.S. soldiers stationed in England during WWI.
The toilets in England at the time were predominately made by the company "Thomas Crapper & Co Ltd",
with the company's name appearing on the toilets.
The founder of the company, Thomas Crapper (born around 1836 and died 1910), was a famous
plumber.
At least, as famous as plumbers can be- he was the official plumber of a few of the royal
family of the day and owned one of the larger plumbing companies in England at the time.
Among his accomplishments, he holds eight patents in the plumbing field, including inventing
such things as the "ballcock", which is the float-triggered flushing mechanism in your
toilet.
In any event, the soldiers took to calling toilets "The Crapper" because of Thomas Crapper
& Co., and brought that slang term back with them to the United States.
• You might at this point be wondering if the word "crap" derives from "Crapper".
It turns out, no.
While the ultimate origins of the word "crap" are not entirely known, it is known that it
was commonly used in England to refer to rubbish or chaff, but fell out of use in the 16th
century, long before Thomas Crapper and his company came along.
The term "crap" was still used somewhat in America though, coming over pre-16th century
from England, and it is thought that one of the reasons American soldiers seemed to universally
take to calling the toilet "The Crapper" is that they found it funny with "crap" meaning
something to the effect of "refuse" and that most of the cisterns and toilets in England
were stamped with "T. Crapper & Co Ltd".
It was ironical to them, though the joke was lost on the English who had long stopped using
the term "crap" at that point.
Moving on to why the toilet is sometimes called the “John”, the term is thought to derive
from Sir John Harrington or, at the least, to have been popularized due to Harrington.
(There are a few references of the toilet being called "Cousin John", as well as many
references to it being called "Jake" and other such generic names before Harrington was born;
but it is generally agreed that why we now call it "John" is because of Harrington and
not from the old "Cousin John").
In any event, Sir John Harrington lived in the late 16th and early 17th centuries and
was one of the 102 god-children of Queen Elizabeth I- in his case, known as the "Saucy Godson"
for his proclivity to write somewhat risqué poetry and other things, which often got him
banished only to be allowed to return again sometime later.
Along with writing several notable works, Harrington also devised Britain's first flushing
toilet, which he called the "Ajax".
This derived from the term "Jakes", which, as noted, was a slang term for what we now
call a toilet.
Shortly thereafter, Harrington wrote one of his more famous and popular works titled "A
New Discourse upon a Stale Subject: The Metamorphosis of Ajax".
This, on the surface, was about his new invention, but more to the point was a political allegory
on the "stercus" (excrement) that was poisoning the state.
The book itself got him banished from the court for a time due to its allusions to the
Earl of Leicester.
However, the actual flushing toilet device itself was real and was installed in his home
and later one was made for the queen around 1596.
The device worked by pulling a cord that would allow water to rush in from the "water closet",
which would flush away the waste.
Although Harrington wasn't by any means the first to invent a flushing toilet (there are
references to flushing toilets going all the way back to around 2600 BC), his invention
was an innovation in Britain at the time and it was commonly thought that he was the inventor
of the flushing toilet because of it, which is why it is thought the flushing toilet today
is often also called a "John".
• The term "toilet" itself comes from the French "toilette", which meant "dressing room".
This "toilette" in turn derived from the French "toile", meaning "cloth"; specifically, referring
to the cloth draped over someone's shoulders while their hair was being groomed.
During the 17th century, the toilet was simply the process of getting dressed, fixing your
hair, and applying make-up and the like, more or less grooming one's self.
This gradually began to refer to the items around where someone was groomed, such as
the table, powder bottles, and other items.
Around the 1800s in America, this term began being used to refer to both the room itself
where people got dressed and ready for the day, as well as the device now most commonly
known as the toilet.
Author: Karl Smallwood.