Seat-free toilets are seen as more hygienic because strangers aren't sharing the same toilet seat. Toilet seats are also often broken by patrons and are expensive and difficult to replace.
Most Italian public toilets don't have a toilet seat.
This has to do with maintenance. Since public toilets are often less than spotless, people often climb with their shoes on top of them, not to sit on a potentially dirty seat.
A toilet bowl seat is completely unnecessary in a public toilet. The pot is regularly cleaned in your own house or in a restaurant. But not in public toilets. As a result, no one sits down on a toilet seat while using the toilet.
European toilets use less water (and may have the "dual-flush" option that lets users choose a lighter flush for liquid waste), and there's less splashback and less noise involved.
Why do some toilets in Greece don't have a seat? Some public toilets in Greece might not have a seat. This is usually because a plastic seat is more difficult to clean than the toilet bowl, so the owners choose to remove it.
Why are all the toilet seats missing in Italian public bathrooms? Seat-free toilets are seen as more hygienic because strangers aren't sharing the same toilet seat. Toilet seats are also often broken by patrons and are expensive and difficult to replace.
Don't flush toilet paper in Greece
There's a very simple explanation: Greek sewage pipes are approximately two inches (50mm) in diameter. American and British plumbing is twice as large (four inches/100mm). The Greek pipes just get clogged.
Empathizing with the Greeks
Believe it or not, Greece is by far not the only European country where you can't flush your toilet paper. It is in good company with 9 others: Belarus, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Turkey, and Ukraine.
While Europeans do use toilet paper, WCs may not always be well stocked. If you're averse to the occasional drip-dry, carry pocket-size tissue packs (easy to buy in Europe) for WCs sans TP. Some countries, such as Greece and Turkey, have very frail plumbing.
Indeed, French building codes require this separation. The location of French toilets is tied to a number of cultural issues, especially public vs. private space and concepts of clean vs. dirty.
Loo. Despite being a very British word for toilet, 'loo' is actually derived from the French phrase 'guardez l'eau', which means 'watch out for the water'.
Squat toilets are generally non-existent in Northern and Western Europe. France and Italy are an exception and have some squat toilets remaining in old buildings and public toilets because they used to be the norm there in the early 20th century.
After pooping, Italians use toilet paper on their butt, but not obsessively so. The person will get themselves clean enough then slide themselves from the toilet seat to sit on the bidet and get extra-specially clean.
Energy costs in Germany are much higher than in the United States, which includes the cost of water. Therefore, the shelf toilets were designed to use much less water than their American counterparts - hence the shelf.
However, while one of the systems most definitely is a toilet for human wastage, the other serves a different purpose. The other "toilet" is in-fact a bidet. You have likely heard of bidet but may not have come across one in the UK, as they are not installed as standard in UK homes or even in most hotels.
Can you flush toilet paper? Yes! Toilet paper is designed to breakdown quickly once it's flushed!
Toilets were often outhouses or unheated areas in larger buildings (no stove in that small room). If you had a bucket of water to wash with after defecating, it would often have been frozen solid in large parts of the year!
From Seashells to Communal Sponges
In very ancient times, wiping with stones and other natural materials and rinsing with water or snow was common. Some cultures opted for seashells and animal furs.
Since their inception in 1980, dual-flush toilets were made to reduce the amount of water flushed during use. They feature two different buttons to perform two different kinds of flushes. The difference in buttons depends on the waste in the toilet. One button for liquid waste, another for solid waste.
There are few reasons why most Australians do not use a bidet in their bathroom. The first reason is their geographic location. Australia does not get a lot of rainy days so water preservation is a must for everyone and so using a bidet could be seen as wasteful in times of drought.
There is a curious social convention in Mexico where used toilet paper is thrown into the wastebasket instead of flushed down the toilet, as it would be in the United States.
Don't. Greek plumbing often consists of dated, narrow pipes which will easily clog if you flush toilet paper down them (and definitely clog if you flush anything else like tampons or baby wipes).
If you must use something other than toilet paper, please be sure to discard it in the trash. Only toilet paper is designed to break apart in pipes and sewers. Toilet paper goes through extensive testing to ensure that it disintegrates as it is flushed, other products remain intact and obstruct pipes.