Yufa town in Beijing's Daxing district, which last year rolled out a big data monitoring platform for sewage management in rural areas, has recently announced an innovative new move to improve the local environment.

To date, over 1,200 households have installed a toilet liquid level indicator, and all 7,000 families in the town will enjoy the new technology by the end of this year.

The apparatus, mainly composed of an ultrasonic sensor, a wireless 'Internet of Things' transmission module and a disposable lithium battery, can receive information on the toilet's liquid level in real time, and give a feedback on it, according to Li Ling, vice-president of a local environmental protection company.

An official of Yufa town in Beijing's Daxing district checks the data of toilet's liquid level on Nov 26. [Photo provided by Daxing district]

Three colors can be displayed on a monitoring platform according to different height of the liquid level. Red suggests an alarm state, indicating that the liquid level exceeds 80 percent of its capacity; yellow signifies an early warning state with over 50 percent; green light will be a normal state.

Also, the system boasts low power consumption, strong signal, long transmission distance, stable performance and good resistance to extreme temperature and humidity.

"Through real-time monitoring and management, we will carry out reasonable vehicle scheduling and offer high efficiency, high quality and low cost of toilet sewage services," said Li.

The efforts were in response to a nationwide "toilet revolution" launched in 2015 to increase the number and raise the standards of toilets at tourist sites and in rural areas.