People can be pretty remiss when it comes to post-toilet handwashing. Most people also tend to have a strong resistance to leaving a public toilet unflushed.
Today’s invention attempts to use the second tendency to overcome the first.
Imagine a toilet flush button (or handle), located within an adjacent basin, which will only work after a sensor (of the type currently used in hand driers) has detected hand movements and water flow within the basin for several seconds. The natural tendency to flush is thus only enabled after a certain amount of handwashing has occurred.
This would also have the advantage that the flush activation mechanism was itself constantly being washed.
that was a very healthy idea.
i’d go a couple of steps further:
first i’d make the door lock release only when people had washed their hands, and second i’d use the soapy then rinse water from handwashing as part (or all) of the flush for the toilet, (which would go to be composted, natch, not dumped into the nearest river or bay!)
i love your site, and your mind is positively fizzing with solutions to some seriously challenging issues.
like public health, in this viral age…
Well, thanks for the kind comments. I’m always open to improvements/suggestions. Someone I met at a party last weekend described the ideas here as ‘mostly crap’. I think he’s technically right, just by the nature of having to have lots of ideas in order to have any good ones at all. I was still tempted to smack him though. You might also enjoy http://delicious.com/search?context=userposts&p=invention&lc=1&u=pra
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