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Every day, the world flushes 270,000 trees down the toilet. If the US switched to bidets, it could save 15 million trees - so why don't Americans use bidets? If you're not familiar with this alternative to toilet paper in many countries, it's a basin separate from the toilet for washing one's nether regions. What countries use bidets? Many households in Europe, Asia, and South America rely on them.
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It's an age-old fact
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The United States just loves going to the bathroom. But unlike most other countries
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the U.S. is flushing away about 270,000 trees a year, along with their toilet water
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But it doesn't have to be this way. The U.S. has the option to follow in the footsteps of Europe
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Asia, and its cousin downstairs, South America, by adopting the bidet. But the U.S. chooses to ignore this technology
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and at times even protest the use of bidets. What's the bid'il
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Today, we're going to come clean about all the reasons the United States has refused to embrace the bidet
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Let's rinse off some facts. Listen, we're not here to yuck anyone's yum
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We're here to state the facts. And the fact is, before the mid-20th century
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many Americans had never come face-to-face with a bidet, which is not hygienic and not recommended
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However, during World War II, many American troops became very familiar with the revolution that is the bidet
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The only problem was that the places where you could find bidets were places often associated with illicit activity
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Now, we're not talking about Olive Garden. We're talking about brothels. Seems if you knew about bidets, one
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could assume you were brothel hopping your way across Europe. So they just didn't talk about it
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For to admit that you had gazed upon the bidet was to admit you visited the bordellos while serving
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Better to just claim you've never even met the bidet. Another reason the bidet had a bad rap stateside
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was due to its use as a contraceptive. In the pioneer days of the bidet
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many believed it could prevent pregnancy. Obviously, that didn't work out too well
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The presence of a bidet suggested that the owner of such a device must really love getting it on
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Even though no evidence has ever been found that douching nor bidets are good ways to prevent pregnancy
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the damage was done and the blemish remained for many years after
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As an early proponent of birth control, Norman Hare stated in 1936
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that the presence of a bidet is regarded almost as a symbol of sin
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Yeah, sinfully spotless downstairs, maybe. The French hold the distinction of inventing the bidet somewhere in the 1600s
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Before that, bedrooms were only equipped with a chamber pot for doing your business
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Once the bidet hit the shelves, French excretion enthusiasts needed only to shift over slightly
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to clean themselves up. Back then, there was no spray of water. It was more of a bowl in a wooden frame kind of deal
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But it got the job done. The word bidet comes from the French word for small horse, due to the appearance of
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riding a horse when using one. Eventually, the term riding the bidet began to catch on in English-speaking countries
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as they compared using the bidet to riding a little French pony. Though, don't try to rear up on the hind legs
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You got to trust us on this one. If you owned a bidet in the 18th century you were viewed as kind of a snob In the early days of the bidet French royals
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swiftly adopted the cleansing basin. Even Marie Antoinette reportedly had one in her jail cell
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while awaiting execution. This caused the bidet to be viewed as a luxury item
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associated with the aristocracy. And you did not want to be compared to those people
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For this reason, the British outright refused to adopt the bidet. For them, the association of the device with French aristocrats and hedonism was enough for England to say, no thanks, bruv
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Turns out the British had a pretty strong influence on the subject since America developed the same attitude towards the bidet
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So much so that a Manhattan hotel tried to install a bidet in 1900, but was met with protests in the streets
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The bidet can keep your downstairs clean in a few ways, and one of them is helping with women's menstruation
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which in the day was a little taboo. Back in the 18th century, women managed their monthly cycle in private
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with towels called jelly rags to keep them clean. An 18th century physician named William Buchan even quoted
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that the British were often inattentive to menstruation, and they suffer accordingly
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So when it was invented, the bidet had great utility to help women freshen up a bit better
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But since the bidet was often primarily associated with women cleaning their unmentionables
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and the subject of menstruation was not a polite topic, men were less likely to install one in their own homes
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Early bidets weren't much more than a bowl on a table, let alone anything resembling modern-day toilets
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But as indoor plumbing evolved, so did the bidet. Gone were the days of a washbasin sitting in the middle of a bedroom
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where any unfortunate sleepwalker could knock it over. Instead of the bedroom, bidets moved into the bathroom
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where the pumpable water could be found. For the first time, you could use a faucet to fill the bowl
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rather than doing it by hand. Once something only elites like Marie Antoinette could afford
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plumbed bidets eventually became cost-efficient enough that any old Joe could own one
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provided that Joe lived anywhere but the US. Cornflakes weren't the only bowl-adjacent invention
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from John Harvey Kellogg. The inventor and physician actually patented an American version of the bidet in 1928
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The patent application outlined how the device would work. Water is delivered to the affected area
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and is not likely to be thrown or discharged from the bowl, which sounds like his way of saying it probably works
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The simple and economical design ended up being a big, wet failure, never catching on in the States
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possibly due to bad marketing by calling the innovation the douche
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All part of a balanced breakfast? Not to be outdone by John Kellogg's attempts to make your hiney-shiny
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Arnold Cohen entered himself into the bidet business in 1964. As the founder of the American Bidet Company Cohen introduced the Sitzbath which placed a spritzer onto the toilet seat itself Cohen goal was to wean the nation off the Charmin and clean up the planet while
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cleaning your rear end. In an especially Cosmo Kramer move, he even had his license plate read
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Mr. Bidet. But despite installing the device in thousands of seats all over New York
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the Sitzbath never took off. Turns out, only the Charmin bears have cracked the code of how
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to successfully market the tushy business. If you thought Europe was the only continent
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to embrace the bidet, we have exciting news for you. These days, you could find just about as many bidets
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in South America and Asia. And not only do they use the bidet
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but they also judge you for not using it. 19th century Hindus refused to believe
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that Europeans would wipe themselves with filthy paper, calling the tales vicious libel
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Islamic nations have also moved down to Bidetown. The tool of cleanliness jibes fully with Turkey's Directorate of Religious Affairs
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which says that water is the preferred method of cleaning yourself. Save the paper for your writings
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We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto. In fact, we're in Japan with the toilet manufacturer, Toto
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They hold the distinction of introducing new milestones in Bidet technology by inventing the washlet in 1980
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The washlet was the Bidet's fancy, more impressive brother. It included a control panel to adjust the water pressure, a built-in deodorizer, and even a seat warmer
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Talk about a classy way to conduct business. But not even the self-drying function or the precision jets were enough to turn America towards the light
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Sales of the device in the U.S. tanked. Maybe it was the built-in prejudice towards the bidet, or maybe it was the $600 price tag
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While the washlet continues to find success overseas, Americans continue to ignore Toto's ad campaigns that promise
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clean is happy. During the middle of the 20th century, Americans were traveling all over Europe
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More traveling meant more exposure to the bidets in foreign bathrooms. If ever there was a time the bidet would catch on, it was in the 1960s
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But one barrier stood in the way, the almighty dollar. If HGTV has taught us anything, it's
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that bathroom renovations are expensive. Since the US resisted bidets for such a long time
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American bathrooms just weren't designed to fit both a toilet and a bidet. In order to make the room, costly renovations
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would have to be done, sometimes up to thousands of dollars to accommodate all the new pipes involved
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One could find a bit of relief with electric toilet top washlets that didn't require the space
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But more often than not, those required a close-by electrical outlet that typically would not exist
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Hey, do you guys remember a few years ago when everybody had to stay home for like a few years
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That was wild, wasn't it? You might also remember during that time that the grocery
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store shelves where toilet paper could usually be found were instead barren and empty The lockdown mania caused a toilet paper panic Everyone was buying up all the toilet paper they could
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not leaving much behind for the rest of us. And according to Wired writer Kate Nibbs
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some bidet sellers saw sales skyrocket during this time. Now that the TP situation has all but
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leveled out, some predict that the bidet will keep going regardless. Kitchen and bath design
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news claims that the toilet is the last aspect of human life to get a real upgrade. Maybe the time
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for fancy bowel movements is now. If toilet paper is killing the trees, but bidets are too darn
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expensive to justify, what's a casual pooper to do? Enter the affordable alternative, wet wipes
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Once associated only with dirty diapers or barbecue fingers, uh, don't mix those two up
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Wet wipes have seen a renaissance in the early 2000s. Why buy a bidet when a package of these bad boys is a few bucks
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Companies began selling wet wipes as an alternative to toilet paper, eventually growing to an over $2 billion industry
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But just because something makes money doesn't mean it's a good alternative. Environmental groups say that the wet wipes are no good for the ocean
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and flushing them is causing major problems. They also contribute to the growing issue of fatbergs
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which are sewer blockages of wipes, food, and waste that clog up sewer systems
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We owe some apologies to the Ninja Turtles. It seems that when some people want to get an idea implemented in America
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they pass a law, which is another reason the United States doesn't have bidets
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and other places do. Over in Europe, some countries require you, by law, to install a bidet in your bathroom
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Or else, even though they originated in France, Italy is the crowned champion of bidet usage
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likely due to a building law in 1975 that mandated every Italian home must have a bidet
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Beyond Italy, bidets can be found in 60% of Japanese houses, while Venezuela boasts a 90% bidet rate among its homes
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Perhaps America's competitive nature will kick in with this information, and the US will finally enter the global bidet race
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tech titan google transformed its headquarters in 2008 with fancy high-tech japanese toto
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toilets that were deemed space toilets by tech crunch always striving to be the innovator
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google wanted its employees to be able to experience the glory that is blasting jets
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warm dryers and something called wand cleaning which we may or may not be able to go into detail
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about on this YouTube video. But instead of inspiring everyday Americans to go out and buy a bidet of their own, most
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saw the techie toilets as elitist and pretentious. It seems Americans didn't want something that SFist called ultra-modern and terrible
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Google's new washroom only served to reinforce the idea that bidets are for the sensitive
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rear ends of the wealthy, not for the average hardworking tush