Pay Per Poo: Toilet Paper Paywall in China's Public Restrooms Sparks Online Backlash

Image by Martin Foskett / Knelstrom Media

By Martin Foskett | Newswire | Knelstrom Media

​BEIJING, CHINA: Toilet paper in some Chinese public restrooms now comes with a price tag: either watch an advertisement or pay half a yuan. This scheme has left users laughing, groaning, and queuing in equal measure.

Clips shared online show the new dispensers bolted to tiled walls, offering two choices. Scan the QR code, watch a short video, and receive a pre-cut ration of paper. Or skip the commercial by paying 0.5 yuan, roughly seven US cents.

Officials insist the trial is about tackling waste and petty theft, long-standing complaints in China's high-traffic public toilets. By rationing supply, they argue, costs are kept down and shortages avoided. Advertising, meanwhile, pays for the system.

But the reaction online has been fierce. Many described the scheme as degrading, a moment of basic need turned into a commercial break. Others joked grimly about the queues, predicting restrooms full of people fidgeting with their phones while waiting for an advert to end.

It is not the first time China's toilet reforms have gone digital. In 2017, Beijing parks installed facial-recognition dispensers to prevent "repeat users" from stripping rolls. That experiment sparked debate at the time, and this latest version has reopened old arguments about necessity versus intrusion.
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Whether "Pay Per Poo" expands nationwide remains to be seen. For now, it serves as another reminder of how deeply daily life in China has been integrated into QR codes and cashless systems, even in places where most people would rather not linger.