What you should know about portable toilets

Portable Toilet Set Up

Chemical portable toilets use a variety of chemicals to reduce offensive smells as well as partially disinfect human waste. As a result of this, it is illegal to dispose of the collected waste into surface water bodies or even into the ground where the waste could contaminate ground water.

Because of their limited storage capacity, these toilet units require regular pumping which normally forms part of a maintenance contract with the suppliers of the toilets. Portable toilets are typically transported to site on the back of a truck or trailer. It is important to ensure that a potential site is identified that provides easy access for one’s service vehicles as well as one’s patrons. Windy sites require that the portable toilets are suitably secured, typically strapped together to ensure that they are not toppled over or even worse, blown away. 

Portable Toilet Maintenance

Construction site managers and event planners know that using temporary portable toilets is often a last resort for employees and patrons, therefore keeping your toilet fresh and clean is the most important part of renting portable toilets and ablution facilities and it is thus no surprise that a servicing agreement is considered the most important part of a portable toilet rental agreement.

Portable Toilet Service Agreements

There are three broad types of service agreements including

• Daily
• Weekly
• Ad Hock 

Daily Portable Toilet Service Agreement

The number of portable toilet units to be deployed will be discussed beforehand and will be dictated by the projected attendance, the duration and whether food and beverages, especially alcoholic beverages will be available or sold. Placement of the portable toilets should be discussed with the event organisers and needs to be located away from food and liquor stalls. Depending on the size of the event, it is preferable to have multiple clusters of portable toilets spread throughout the event provided they are all accessible for service vehicles. Another item to consider is the installation of signage to ensure that patrons are easily able to find their way to the toilets. 

Large events such as outdoor music concerts, summer festivals, sporting events such as marathons etc. require intensive daily servicing and often, depending on the footfall, even servicing every few hours, which can be quite demanding, especially on colder days at events where alcohol is serviced. Obviously a greater amount of planning and logistical support is required for these events.

Weekly Portable Toilet Servicing Agreements

Weekly servicing is typically required by green fields construction sites, parks and smaller informal settlements where footfall is typically less.

Although logistical requirements might be more manageable, cleaning does mean that an intensive effort is required within a short time where there are multiple toilets deployed on a site.

As the maintenance company, long term weekly servicing agreements are easier to manage as they can be placed on a weekly roster.

Portable Toilet Servicing

Toilet servicing generally comprises a ritual of pumping waste, deep cleaning, sanitizing and restocking of consumables.

Pumping Portable Toilet Waste

Powerful vacuum pumps leading to suitably sized tanker trucks are typically used by waste servicing companies enabling them to pump many portable toilets typically from multiple sites every day before the tanks are emptied into designated municipal sewer locations.

It is essential to use registered waste disposal companies are these are less likely to cut corners, especially as some unscrupulous traders have been known to simply dump waste illegally which can quite easily contaminate ground water supplies.

Portable Toilet Cleaning

Typically manufactured from High Density Polyethylene (HDPE) and designed with rounded corners with few or no nooks and crannies, today’s portable toilets are designed specifically to be easier to clean and disinfect. These toilets are also designed to make it easy to clean graffiti.

Once the toilet unit’s waste has been sucked, workers get about cleaning the toilet starting by cleaning, disinfecting and rinsing the waste deposit tank. Once this has been done, the toilet seat, door handles, toilet paper holders and dispensers as well as the interior and exterior such as vents etc of the unit should be given a good clean either with a high pressure water gun or more conventionally by scrubbing it down with a suitable brush, followed by a clean cloth. Either way, anti-bacterial solutions such as chlorine bleach solutions should be used during the cleaning process to ensure that that nasty bacteria is regularly killed off, thus keeping your patrons safe. Once the unit has been cleaned and disinfected, it is time to repair any broken parts, dispensers, hinges, vents etc.

Sanitizing

It is imperative that portable toilets smell fresh and clean for patrons wishing to use the facilities. Therefore before facilities are handed over, they need to be sanitized and deodorised. These products have a limited lifespan dictated by the quality of the product, ambient temperate inside and outside the facilities as well as the footfall or number of patrons frequenting your facilities.

Waste holding tanks that have been cleaned need to be filled with a fresh dose of deodorising chemicals, typically known as blue products. These deodorizers are available in both concentrated liquid format as well as sachet form. The dosage will be dictated by the capacity of the holding tank and the product itself.

Fragrance products are sometimes adhered to a wall of the portable toilet or sometimes inserted inside the toilet paper holder ensuring that a burst of fragrance is released every time it is agitated through use.

Where urinals are deployed deodorizer pucks or cubs are typically used.

Although deodorizers have a limited lifespan, they do release a pleasant smell designed to mask or partially mask offensive smells. It is thus important to ensure that only the most potent products are used.

Restocking

The final process cleaning before handing over or opening up of portable toilets is restocking all consumables being: 

• Toilet paper
• Soap or hand washing liquid
• Air freshner
• Hand Towels
• Bin Liners 

Where crowds are expected such as outdoor music festivals, air shows etc; it may be worth considering having a toilet paper dispenser to ensure that toilet paper does not run out. Alternatively extra large dispensers should be installed. 

Ensuring that your portable toilets always smell fresh 

Especially where many people are expected to use your facilities in a short timeframe, more powerful, concentrated deodorisers are recommended in order to curb offensive smells without overwhelming the user. This should be coupled with cleaning twice or three times a day. The same applies to portable toilets deployed on hot days or in warm countries. 

In order to keep track of when each portable toilet was serviced, a cleaning schedule listing the date and time that a unit was serviced as well as by whom denoted by a name and signature. 

Where portable toilet units are not deployed at mass events, toilet owners often use their experience to determine the frequency of servicing.