Ever wondered why your bathroom or washroom features white ceramic products? Well, the obvious explanation is the water-resistant ability of ceramic material. But there is another catch to it. The idea behind a white porcelain toilet or white ceramic tiles is to know whether your tiles, toilet seat, and bowl are clean or not. When a design studio tries to intercept this aspect, there would surely be fingers pointed.
Woodio is a Finnish modern-day interior and design brand that is attracting a lot of attention for its bio-material toilet, which the company claims to be the world’s first of its kind. Dubbed Block, the wall-mounted toilet is made of wood. Yes, you heard it right, everything from the seat to the bowl of the Block toilet is formed from wood composite. But why wood and how is it meant to be sanitized or cleaned? Moreover, why did they name it Block? We got in touch with the CEO of Woodio and this is what he said.
“Well, believe it or not, it looked like a block of something to us, hence Block,” Petro Lahtinen, the CEO of Woodio tells us. “Although the wood content is significant, the outer layer inside the toilet features sanitary grade coating. Hence in everyday use, the Block toilet works exactly like traditional ones,” he informs. As far as cleaning is concerned, commercial toilet cleaners are suitable for the interior surfaces of the toilet. The user can wipe the exterior with a damp cloth.
Petro further claims, “The durability and the cleanliness aspect of the wooden toilet are better than the ceramic ones.” On our inquisitiveness for the reason to come with a wooden toilet, Petro answers, “There is nothing wrong with ceramic itself. It is the manufacturing process of the ceramics that causes the environmental impact. Typically, industrial ceramics are fired at 1,500 degrees Celsius for at least 12 hours and this heat is produced typically by burning gas, which obviously causes considerable CO2 emissions.”
The studio explains that its product generates 99 percent fewer emissions in its production than ceramics. The Block wall-mounted toilet was made from a material developed by Woodio founder Petro Lahtinen, which is 80 percent wood. This included locally sourced aspen and trimmings (offcuts) from the Finnish forest industry.
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Woodio also manufactures washbasins and bathtubs in the same material, but the whole idea of coming up with a wooden toilet was something nobody saw coming. The problem however arises after the life cycle of the toilet is complete, which could very well be between 10-50 years, at the very best. The only alternative left is burning the toilet.
To which Petro responds, “The toilet will last the lifetime, decades basically. All the materials used have been to promote a long lifecycle. We recommend putting to energy waste, perhaps in the future, we grind them for board raw material.” Available in ten different Northern nature-inspired colors, Woodio Block can be availed for approximately $1000 a unit.
