These Public Bathrooms Are Free. But If You Want Toilet Paper, You Have to Watch an Ad

In China, going to the bathroom can come at a cost.

Some of the country’s public bathrooms have incorporated a new system that requires visitors to scan a QR code and watch an advertisement to gain access to toilet paper, as seen in a video shared by China Insider. 

Once the ad is complete, six squares of toilet paper are dispensed from the machine. If that isn’t enough, the user must repeat the process to gain access to another six squares. People are also given the option to pay 0.5 RMB (around $0.07) if they wish to skip the video altogether, according to ABC 10News. 

The high-tech toilet paper dispensers seem to be part of an effort to reduce waste and prevent people from taking excessive amounts of supplies.

Toilet paper thieves have been such a longstanding problem that, back in 2017, authorities in Beijing attempted to deal with the issue by installing high-tech toilet paper dispensers that used facial recognition software to control exactly how much toilet paper each person could take. 

“The people who steal toilet paper are greedy,” He Zhiqiang, a customer service worker from the northwestern region of Ningxia, told The New York Times in March 2017. “Toilet paper is a public resource. We need to prevent waste.”

When the facial recognition dispensers were introduced at the Temple of Heaven Park at the time, visitors were required to stare into the machine for three seconds before a sheet of toilet paper, around nine feet long, would be dispensed. If they wanted more toilet paper, they would have to wait nine minutes to be able to scan their face a second time. 

“We brainstormed many options: fingerprints, infrared and facial recognition. We went with facial recognition, because it’s the most hygienic way,” Lei Zhenshan, marketing director for the company that designed the device, explained at the time.

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Some visitors, including Wang Jianquan, a retired shopping manager, aren’t fans of the new technology. “The sheets are too short,” he said. 

Others, however, supported the idea that the expensive machines may be the first step to changing mindsets. “It’s a very bad habit,” Qin Gang said of people’s willingness to exploit public goods. “Maybe we can use technology to change how people think.”