Trending: Watch How A Self-Cleaning Public Toilet In Paris Works

If the idea of germs concealed on toilet seats and faucet handles makes you tremble, you undoubtedly spend less time than you possibly can in public toilets. And when you do find yourself brave enough to enter the washroom, you could find yourself flushing with your shoe, squatting perilously over a toilet seat without letting your bare skin touch it and using your elbows to force open the washroom door. However, there are several nations where self-cleaning public toilets are becoming increasingly common. A video of one such toilet’s self-cleaning operation was recently uploaded on X, putting an end to our collective public washroom anxiety.

The first scene in the video recorded in Paris is of an automated toilet closing. Then, water spills over the floor as the toilet folds into a chamber. When the toilet is completely clean, the water flow shuts down and the door reopens.

Since being shared, the post garnered over 26 million views. That being said, not everyone was thrilled in the comments section. While some people expressed appreciation, others expressed concern over other issues they brought up.

A user commented, “Refreshing to watch.”

Another user wrote, “Simple but effective.”

“I like how the water cleans off the entire floor,” said the third user.

But, another section of users who weren’t happy with this said, “That’s cool and all, but why is there a camera recording this?!?”

Another user pointed out, “The water never reaches the toilet side.”

Yet another user said, “Quite anticlimactic. I was expecting a lot more pyrotechnics.”

How do automatic toilets clean themselves?

The majority of self-cleaning public toilets employ a mix of weight sensors and timers to ensure that the area is properly cleaned between uses—all without soaking any visitors.

Certain self-cleaning toilets include a robotic arm that emerges from the wall behind the seat to clean the surface. In some cases, the seat itself rotates through two full 360-degree rotations, going via a device at the rear that resembles a squeegee and purifies the seat on the initial pass before swiping away excess water on the following rotation.

It takes between 40 seconds and two minutes to complete the process. Although a wet floor in a public toilet isn’t something you should hope for, in this instance it’s a positive thing since it indicates that the surface has been cleaned and disinfected using a disinfectant cleaner.