

China is currently in the middle of a nationwide “toilet revolution” aimed at improving the quality and quantity of the country’s infamously abysmal public toilets, but so far that revolution isn’t going quite as smoothly as officials had hoped.

Over 1,500 rolls of toilet paper were snatched up in one week at Chengdu’s People’s Park after the city launched its own campaign in the “toilet revolution” earlier this month, providing free toilet paper and soap at public bathrooms in scenic areas around the city. That number far exceeded expectations.

It appears as though visitors are taking advantage of Chengdu’s generosity by grabbing up as much of the precious paper as they can carry. A cleaner at the park told the Chengdu Business Daily that she had spotted numerous people walking out of the public bathrooms with their pockets stuffed full of toilet paper.

A park manager told reporters that this “crime spree” could end up costing the park 100,000 yuan in a year, adding that if the situation does not change in a few months then the free toilet paper will be pulled from individual stalls and only offered in the front.



The manager speculated that the park might follow the lead of the four-star public toilets at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing which tried to wipe out rampant toilet paper theft last month by installing face recognition scanners inside bathrooms that would allocate visitors with only 60-cm long pieces of toilet paper.



What a brave new world.

[Images via Chengdu Business Daily]



