Fun Toilet Facts for World Toilet Day

Here are some fun facts about toilets we thought we’d share with you on World Toilet Day:

1. More people in the world have mobile phones than toilets.
2. Your smartphone has about 20 times more bacteria on it than your toilet handle.
3. The average person spends about 3 months of their lifetime sitting on a toilet.
4. Over $100,000 US dollars was spent on a study to determine whether most people put their toilet paper on the holder with the flap in front or behind. The conclusion: three out of four people have the flap in the front.
5. The average person goes to the toilet about 2,500 times a year.
6. The average desk has 400 times more bacteria on it than the average toilet seat.
7. Did you know that you are flushing up to 1.6 gallons of water in every single flush?
8. The cleanest toilet in a public place is typically the first toilet cubicle in the row, as it is the least used and thus the cleanest of all.
9. Almost 20% of people do not wash their hands after they visit the toilet. And of those who do, only 30%, use soap to wash their hands.
10. In an average household, the average roll of toilet paper lasts approximately five days.
11. We use an average of 57 sheets of toilet paper a day.
12. It takes about 384 trees to make the toilet paper that one man uses within his lifetime.
13. The average person uses 100 rolls of toilet paper per year (over 20,000 sheets).
14. The daily production of toilet paper is about 83,048,116 rolls per day

And, here are just a few plumbing misconceptions we hear a lot – Fact verses Fiction:

• Roughly 157 gallons of water are wasted every year due to a slow leak of 3 drops a minute – FACT: every extra drip wastes a ton of water and can costs you a lot of money. You should get a leak checked out and fixed as soon as possible!
• Liquid drain cleaner can unclog your sink – FICTION: buildup of materials such as hair, skin and makeup typically cause a sink to clog.  Any kind of liquid drain cleaner will not permanently fix your clogged sink because it can’t dissolve solids and overuse can lead to the deterioration of your pipes due to some of the active ingredients in the cleaner.
• A small critter can climb up a pipe and into your toilet bowl – FACT:  a typical home has many pipes that run from your sewer system to the roof of your home and these pipes connect to your home’s drain system. It is possible for a snake or rat to make their way through the sewer line and into your toilet bowl, however, it is not very common.
• Flushable wipes are OK to flush down the toilet – FICTION:  often times toilet wipes are the cause of clogged toilets, so don’t flush.  We always tell our customers the only two things that should be flushed down the toilet are human waste and toilet paper.

We hope you enjoyed these fun facts! If you have any type of plumbing problem, from clogged drains to water heater issues, our experienced technicians are standing by to fix them! Give Eastern Plumbing a call today at 252-758-7579 ! We are available 24/7.