6 ms·

I live in London and the lack of public toilets is just beyond belief. Most of them were shut years ago by councils trying to save money. And the results is ra

I live in London and the lack of public toilets is just beyond belief. Most of them were shut years ago by councils trying to save money. And the results is rather abysmal: the public now have to rely on the businesses to provide such facilities,which isn't the end of the world in central parts of the city,where there are cafés after cafes,but what about further out to suburbs? If it's bad to the general public, it's 10 times worse for the drivers of delivery vans, lorries,or even bus drivers. Literally nobody in the country is thinking about such infrastructure, nobody wants to initiate it, because,well,you know, it's not as popular and vote winning as 'more pressing issues'. This is also one of the reasons why there are so few women in the logistics sector, because you can't just pull it out behind a bush.

bitcharmer 6y ago
Even in central London when I've worked for many years I've had situations where me and my 2 year old son were asked to leave an establishment right after I stated we have a bathroom emergency and I just need 3 minutes to deal with it. TBH I don't blame private businesses. It's not like they are obligated to share their facilities with non-paying customers. It's just a shame London became like that.
- londons_explore 6y ago
  There is a scheme where a private business can open their bathroom to the public, put a sign in the window saying "Our toilets are open to all", and get paid a bit by government to contribute to maintanance. Seems like a good deal all round, considering many businesses need to have toilets for staff and customers already. The sign makes them look like good citizens, the additional maintenance is probably very small, and some of the people who come in to use the toilet will buy something, so it acts like advertising too. I don't know why everywhere doesn't do it.
  - toyg 6y ago
    They don’t do it for the usual reasons: people with terrible and unhygienic habits, vandalism, drug consumption, smelly homeless, etc etc. I remember public toilets in the ‘80s, when heroin and smoking were more of a thing: everything was half-burnt, constantly. It’s the usual tragedy of the commons, or “why we can’t have nice things”.
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    > I don't know why everywhere doesn't do it. The cost of dealing with the kinds of messes that happen in public toilets is exorbitant.
    - Frost1x 6y ago
      If you want more and more people to checkout of consumerism, removing public restrooms is a great start. It doesn't directly effect me so much (I'm apparently part camel) but indirectly, some loved ones I've traveled with need to use the restroom frequently and as the logistics person usually having to find solutions for everyone, I can tell you it drives me insane how difficult it is to find restrooms sometimes. There are areas I flat I refuse to go with others just because I'm not going to spend half my day running around in search for a restroom, nor do I want to feel inclined to buy a cup of coffee or whatever every single time someone needs to urinate. If I'm going to one specific place and I know there's restrooms that's fine but we tend to roam around. That's good for your business. The less inclined I am to roam, the less likely you'll ever see any money from me. I'd rather just say "hey, let's do a family and friends get together and screw going out anywhere... come to my house, all the restrooms you can use here and no taxes or other non-sense!" There's probably $500-1k+ of revenue that local businesses didn't get that evening, but hey, it's better for my friends and family, we can save and invest that and be more comfortable. For governments it doesn't matter, they can just shift taxes to where it needs to be. For businesses, it can seriously hurt your bottom line. I can't imagine operating a restroom is so costly to offset the lost customers that it's worth cutting off so many potential patrons, but maybe I'm wrong or maybe people will continue throwing their money in areas that aren't consumer friendly. It won't be me though. Also I'm not that old, the more elderly who tend to have more disposable income from wealth accumulation are also people who often have less ability to wait to use restrooms. They seem like another market to consider.
  - amelius 6y ago
    People throw all kinds of garbage into toilets and fixing them becomes a weekly chore. Anyway, if people can start a successful business around overpriced coffee, then I'm curious if it's possible to start a profitable chain of public restrooms.
  - dominotw 6y ago
    Toilet paper theft is concern too
    - cosmodisk 6y ago
      I remember visiting newly fitted library in Pimlico,London. There was a huge sign on the toilet door saying you need to ask for toilet paper at the admin desk. So I go to the desk and ask for it, obviously curious to know why such policy exist to start with. They did tell they couldn't keep up with the thefts of toilet paper and couldn't buy it fast enough. This is one of the reasons a lot of nice and useful things can't existing for public, because a few idiots ruin it all for others.
      - edoceo 6y ago
        Why is toilet paper need to be stole? Maybe if cizitens had basic needs met they would not need to steal TP?
        cosmodisk 6y ago
        I almost 100% sure it's not those in the greatest need who keep stealing it. It's just a category of people,who treat anything that isn't theirs as crap. It's the same people who steal all the towels,soap bars and what not from the hotel room, because,you know, they paid a lot for it. Or like in my own town,where the shoplifters are often teachers and medics- hardly the first category that come to your mind.
      - tomjen3 6y ago
        I wonder if there is some way we could make it open for the public minus the couple idiots who run it for the rest of us. I don't really want to make it like Chinas social credit score, more like you do these bad things and we take your good person card.
  - notahacker 6y ago
    Mostly governments resolve it without needing to subsidise toilet use by requiring licensed premises or anywhere serving food and drink to have toilets
mattacular 6y ago
In the US many businesses are required to have bathrooms but they can and do make them for customers only. That combined with a lack of public bathrooms (not just a lack - they effectively do not exist here) leaves many workers with no other option.
- dominotw 6y ago
  > but they can and do make them for customers only. Starbucks doesn't anymore after the PR incident couple of years ago. There are 15k Starbucks in USA.
  - capableweb 6y ago
    That about 1 Starbuck for every 600km², hardly a replacement for public bathrooms.
    - dominotw 6y ago
      Sure. How many public restrooms do you think USA should have?
      - Frost1x 6y ago
        More than Starbucks alone can or should be forced to provide. Where that number lies I'm not entirely sure, but I imagine interstate commerce and population densities would be a pretty good starting point.
      - howinteresting 6y ago
        1% of the population, so around 3 million, would be a good starting point.
    - jjtheblunt 6y ago
      of course the vast majority of the US is open land, still, far from any Starbucks or humans, so the distribution of Starbucks places them close to humans for some huge percentile of humans at any given point in time in the US, by design of course.
gambiting 6y ago
I had to visit my country's consulate in Manchester couple months ago in the middle of lockdown, and in city centre there was NOWHERE to pee. Zero. I went literally from business to business begging to use their facilities and nope, due to covid customers are not allowed in. Nope nope and nope. Went through several places and ended up going in some back alley. Absolutely ridiculous and I have no idea how people manage day to day.
- monstersinF 6y ago
  A (nice) hotel I stayed at recently marked their lobby restrooms as closed, even to customers. It get odd as the hotel wasn’t somewhere you’d walk to, so it would be paying customers anyways
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    Could be taxi or ride share drivers or food delivery drivers. I know of one taxi driver that was reported to police for the mess he left the hotels’ bathrooms.
- reddotX 6y ago
  people should start peeing on the streets
  - takeda 6y ago
    You can start by example, I might join after laws are changed, especially the one that if you are unfortunate, you can end up being labeled a sex offender for taking a leak.
    - gambiting 6y ago
      Not a crime in the UK fortunately.
      - 2421n 6y ago
amelius 6y ago
Being able to pee anywhere is the one app that is missing from my iPhone.
- smnscu 6y ago
  That's a good idea, I wonder whether such apps exist. Just wanted to point out that you _are_ able to pee anywhere, you might not be allowed to, though.
- Mediterraneo10 6y ago
  OpenStreetMap contains data on businesses and which of them have a toilet. You can see this detail on apps like OSMAnd. If you really need to pee, petrol stations are among the businesses least likely to challenge someone for using the toilet without buying anything.
Spooky23 6y ago
That isn’t the Amazon driver problem. Their issue is that the drivers get a nearly inhuman work quota with automated enforcement and no recourse. UPS drivers work their butts off, but don’t get fired for taking a dump. End of the day, it’s bad management on Amazon’s part. They’ve built out a distribution network very quickly, but being dependent on desperation on the part of a miserable workforce has pretty obvious drawbacks.
kilotaras 6y ago
I was blown away when I visited Brussels and there were street urinals like [0] scattered around city. Now in London, and whenever I see men urinating on trees I cannot help but think "put the fricking urinals on the streets" [0] https://www.travelblog.org/Photos/642355 https://www.travelblog.org/Photos/642355

bitcharmer 6y ago

Even in central London when I've worked for many years I've had situations where me and my 2 year old son were asked to leave an establishment right after I stated we have a bathroom emergency and I just need 3 minutes to deal with it. TBH I don't blame private businesses. It's not like they are obligated to share their facilities with non-paying customers. It's just a shame London became like that.

londons_explore 6y ago
There is a scheme where a private business can open their bathroom to the public, put a sign in the window saying "Our toilets are open to all", and get paid a bit by government to contribute to maintanance. Seems like a good deal all round, considering many businesses need to have toilets for staff and customers already. The sign makes them look like good citizens, the additional maintenance is probably very small, and some of the people who come in to use the toilet will buy something, so it acts like advertising too. I don't know why everywhere doesn't do it.
- toyg 6y ago
  They don’t do it for the usual reasons: people with terrible and unhygienic habits, vandalism, drug consumption, smelly homeless, etc etc. I remember public toilets in the ‘80s, when heroin and smoking were more of a thing: everything was half-burnt, constantly. It’s the usual tragedy of the commons, or “why we can’t have nice things”.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  > I don't know why everywhere doesn't do it. The cost of dealing with the kinds of messes that happen in public toilets is exorbitant.
  - Frost1x 6y ago
    If you want more and more people to checkout of consumerism, removing public restrooms is a great start. It doesn't directly effect me so much (I'm apparently part camel) but indirectly, some loved ones I've traveled with need to use the restroom frequently and as the logistics person usually having to find solutions for everyone, I can tell you it drives me insane how difficult it is to find restrooms sometimes. There are areas I flat I refuse to go with others just because I'm not going to spend half my day running around in search for a restroom, nor do I want to feel inclined to buy a cup of coffee or whatever every single time someone needs to urinate. If I'm going to one specific place and I know there's restrooms that's fine but we tend to roam around. That's good for your business. The less inclined I am to roam, the less likely you'll ever see any money from me. I'd rather just say "hey, let's do a family and friends get together and screw going out anywhere... come to my house, all the restrooms you can use here and no taxes or other non-sense!" There's probably $500-1k+ of revenue that local businesses didn't get that evening, but hey, it's better for my friends and family, we can save and invest that and be more comfortable. For governments it doesn't matter, they can just shift taxes to where it needs to be. For businesses, it can seriously hurt your bottom line. I can't imagine operating a restroom is so costly to offset the lost customers that it's worth cutting off so many potential patrons, but maybe I'm wrong or maybe people will continue throwing their money in areas that aren't consumer friendly. It won't be me though. Also I'm not that old, the more elderly who tend to have more disposable income from wealth accumulation are also people who often have less ability to wait to use restrooms. They seem like another market to consider.
- amelius 6y ago
  People throw all kinds of garbage into toilets and fixing them becomes a weekly chore. Anyway, if people can start a successful business around overpriced coffee, then I'm curious if it's possible to start a profitable chain of public restrooms.
- dominotw 6y ago
  Toilet paper theft is concern too
  - cosmodisk 6y ago
    I remember visiting newly fitted library in Pimlico,London. There was a huge sign on the toilet door saying you need to ask for toilet paper at the admin desk. So I go to the desk and ask for it, obviously curious to know why such policy exist to start with. They did tell they couldn't keep up with the thefts of toilet paper and couldn't buy it fast enough. This is one of the reasons a lot of nice and useful things can't existing for public, because a few idiots ruin it all for others.
    - edoceo 6y ago
      Why is toilet paper need to be stole? Maybe if cizitens had basic needs met they would not need to steal TP?
      - cosmodisk 6y ago
        I almost 100% sure it's not those in the greatest need who keep stealing it. It's just a category of people,who treat anything that isn't theirs as crap. It's the same people who steal all the towels,soap bars and what not from the hotel room, because,you know, they paid a lot for it. Or like in my own town,where the shoplifters are often teachers and medics- hardly the first category that come to your mind.
    - tomjen3 6y ago
      I wonder if there is some way we could make it open for the public minus the couple idiots who run it for the rest of us. I don't really want to make it like Chinas social credit score, more like you do these bad things and we take your good person card.
- notahacker 6y ago
  Mostly governments resolve it without needing to subsidise toilet use by requiring licensed premises or anywhere serving food and drink to have toilets

mattacular 6y ago

In the US many businesses are required to have bathrooms but they can and do make them for customers only. That combined with a lack of public bathrooms (not just a lack - they effectively do not exist here) leaves many workers with no other option.

dominotw 6y ago
> but they can and do make them for customers only. Starbucks doesn't anymore after the PR incident couple of years ago. There are 15k Starbucks in USA.
- capableweb 6y ago
  That about 1 Starbuck for every 600km², hardly a replacement for public bathrooms.
  - dominotw 6y ago
    Sure. How many public restrooms do you think USA should have?
    - Frost1x 6y ago
      More than Starbucks alone can or should be forced to provide. Where that number lies I'm not entirely sure, but I imagine interstate commerce and population densities would be a pretty good starting point.
    - howinteresting 6y ago
      1% of the population, so around 3 million, would be a good starting point.
  - jjtheblunt 6y ago
    of course the vast majority of the US is open land, still, far from any Starbucks or humans, so the distribution of Starbucks places them close to humans for some huge percentile of humans at any given point in time in the US, by design of course.

gambiting 6y ago

I had to visit my country's consulate in Manchester couple months ago in the middle of lockdown, and in city centre there was NOWHERE to pee. Zero. I went literally from business to business begging to use their facilities and nope, due to covid customers are not allowed in. Nope nope and nope. Went through several places and ended up going in some back alley. Absolutely ridiculous and I have no idea how people manage day to day.

monstersinF 6y ago
A (nice) hotel I stayed at recently marked their lobby restrooms as closed, even to customers. It get odd as the hotel wasn’t somewhere you’d walk to, so it would be paying customers anyways
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  Could be taxi or ride share drivers or food delivery drivers. I know of one taxi driver that was reported to police for the mess he left the hotels’ bathrooms.
reddotX 6y ago
people should start peeing on the streets
- takeda 6y ago
  You can start by example, I might join after laws are changed, especially the one that if you are unfortunate, you can end up being labeled a sex offender for taking a leak.
  - gambiting 6y ago
    Not a crime in the UK fortunately.
    - 2421n 6y ago

amelius 6y ago

Being able to pee anywhere is the one app that is missing from my iPhone.

smnscu 6y ago
That's a good idea, I wonder whether such apps exist. Just wanted to point out that you _are_ able to pee anywhere, you might not be allowed to, though.
Mediterraneo10 6y ago
OpenStreetMap contains data on businesses and which of them have a toilet. You can see this detail on apps like OSMAnd. If you really need to pee, petrol stations are among the businesses least likely to challenge someone for using the toilet without buying anything.

Spooky23 6y ago

That isn’t the Amazon driver problem. Their issue is that the drivers get a nearly inhuman work quota with automated enforcement and no recourse. UPS drivers work their butts off, but don’t get fired for taking a dump. End of the day, it’s bad management on Amazon’s part. They’ve built out a distribution network very quickly, but being dependent on desperation on the part of a miserable workforce has pretty obvious drawbacks.

kilotaras 6y ago

I was blown away when I visited Brussels and there were street urinals like [0] scattered around city. Now in London, and whenever I see men urinating on trees I cannot help but think "put the fricking urinals on the streets" [0] https://www.travelblog.org/Photos/642355 https://www.travelblog.org/Photos/642355