Monitoring Desk
A park in Beijing has installed toilet paper dispensers with facial recognition to stop visitors from taking too much loo roll, media reports say.
Machines at the Temple of Heaven park scan visitors’ faces before dispensing a fixed length strip of paper. The tourist attraction is reportedly frequented by visitors who take large amounts of loo roll home.
It has reignited debate over the lack of social graces among some Chinese.
Flushed with success
Park officials have installed six machines at its public bathrooms in a half-month trial, with staff on standby to explain the technology to visitors. The park has retained its existing loo roll dispensers.
The new machines, placed at the average heights for men and women, dispense strips of toilet paper measuring about 60 to 70cm (24 to 27.5 inches) to each person.
They will not dispense more paper to the same person until after nine minutes have passed.
“If we encounter guests who have diarrhoea or any other situation in which they urgently require toilet paper, then our staff on the ground will directly provide the toilet paper,” a park spokesman told Beijing Wanbao.
The park also upgraded the toilet paper’s quality from one-ply to two-ply.
When the BBC visited the toilets on Monday, the machines had been turned off. A staff member said they were not in use as there were not many visitors in the park that day.
