The politics of poo: Britain’s public toilets are in mortal peril
In 1969 March Fong Eu mounted the steps in front of the Californian State Capitol and smashed a porcelain toilet to smithereens with an axe. Eu, a Democrat at the California State Assembly, was taking a stand against what she saw as the inherently misogynistic state of public toilets in the US – men could go freely outdoors whilst women had to pay to pee.
Eu’s revolt inspired a birth of the Committee to End Pay Toilets in America (Ceptia) formed to “eliminate pay toilets in the US”. Ceptia’s campaign, which included publishing a pamphlet titled the Free Toilet Paper, was ultimately successful. So successful, in fact, that public toilets today are rare in the US; there are just eight per 100,000 people. Laws against paid-for toilets still exist and nowadays stunned Yankees on Quora advise each other on how to cope during excursions to Europe, marvelling at the idea of paying 20 cents for the privilege to pee. “What was your biggest culture shock going to Europe?” they ask each other. Answer: the latrines.
Loos, like prisons, can tell you a lot about a country. Japan’s are frighteningly clean and win architectural awards. Iceland has the highest WC-to-population ratio boasting 56 stalls per 100,000 people, albeit this totals just 160 latrines for the entire country. Russia’s require you to BYOP (paper).
In Britain, the state of public toilets paints a miserable scene. There are 1,500 public toilets in London, a city of over 8m people. Worse, our loos are in mortal peril. Over the last decade 50-60 per cent of all public toilets have shut down, according to Raymond Martin of the British Toilet Association (BTA).
One in five Brits, apparently, are beholden to ‘’ keeping them indoors out of fear of getting stranded in a loo desert. That’s according to an RSPH pamphlet from 2019 titled Taking the P***: the decline of the great British public toilet. Two thirds of women and half of men have ‘deliberately dehydrated’ themselves due to toilet scarcity, according to the charity Jude. Last year 81 per cent of Londoners said public toilet provision was bad. It’s more of an issue for the old and weak-bowelled. For some people with disabilities, it amounts to a “prison sentence”.
Can a toilet make its own money? Can a toilet make a profit?
Raymond Martin of the British Toilet Association
Alarmingly, a survey last month gave it just five years until public loos become totally extinct in the borough of Hammersmith and Fulham. If nothing changes, Lewisham and Merton will become barren for loo-seekers by 2039.
Angry feminists are this time not to blame. Public toilets must be maintained costing up to £80,000 a year. Councils are not flush with money; from 2010-2020 they saw a real-terms reduction of £15bn in government funding and currently owe a combined £98bn to lenders. Many are bankrupt or near it. Providing discretionary services like park benches and WCs is not a legal obligation (the BTA would like it to be). So: closing crappers is an easy money save.
Yet there is an economic argument for state investment in public toilets: if people don’t come out, they can’t spend money. Low footfall leaves businesses with no choice but to shut down.
What’s more, public urination is costly and on the rise since loos are scarce. The colossal cost of clean-up operations is crippling councils. Westminster spends nearly £1m a year on cleaning pee stains, despite having the highest density of loos in any London borough. Funds could be spent on WCs not detergent.
The BTA would like a dedicated Department of Sanitation and Hygiene to deal with toilets to lend the issue the gravitas it deserves. The problem is a “minister for poo” isn’t all that appealing, as Martin points out. But an innovator could make a real difference. “Can a toilet make its own money” he wonders. “Can a toilet make a profit?”
In the end it comes down to the Magna Carta, the BTA chief says. For that Great Charter of 1215, a cornerstone of British democracy, says the health and wellbeing of the populus far outweighs that of the state or the crown. “And the people in this country are sick. They can’t urinate; there’s dirt and detritus everywhere. You go into these places, the sinks are broken, no wonder people are peeing in the streets.”