Servicing your portable public toilets

Whether it be a music festival, a political rally, sports event or a greenfields construction site, ablution facilities for crowds of people are often one of the most important considerations when planning logistical support amenities for these events.

Toilets are always judged by how they smell and no one likes to have to use dirty toilets which require intensive servicing during use, often up to once an hour depending on the usage. As a result of this, in order to ensure that a high standard of cleanliness is maintained, a servicing contract is a vital part of toilet hire.

Portable Toilet Service Intervals

Where as a normal servicing schedule is once or twice a week, where portable toilets are deployed for mass events, it is recommended that the servicing or at least the cleaning schedule be flexible enough to cater for the inevitable surge in demand for ablution facilities which occurs at these events. This is especially the case at events where alcoholic beverages are served as this will dramatically increase the demand for toilet facilities. Depending on the scale and number of workers involved, typically building and construction sites only require servicing once a week.

Service agreements should include the following:

Raw Sewerage Pumping

Regular pumping of your portable toilet facilities raw sewerage. This can be done on a scheduled basis or can be tailored to accommodate the actual usage of your ablution facilities.  All pumped waste is transported to an authorised sanitation facility and disposed of legally and safely with all health and safety protocols being followed.

Generally vacuum tanker trucks arrive on site to pump out each toilet’s waste into a holding tank through large diameter hoses.

Cleaning of your portable toilet facilities

Most modern day portable toilets are made of High Density Polyethylene, (HDPE) making cleaning easier. Kitted out in the appropriate PPE, workers typically employ high pressure washers fitted with anti bacterial dispensers to clean out deposit tanks and to quickly and effectively clean all interior surfaces in order to dislodge dirt and grime as well as any possible bacterial and mould build up.

Regular and deep cleaning cycles should be scheduled.

At the same time workers thoroughly inspect your toilet facilities and identify and catalogue any possible breakages, wear and tear and order or replace parts where necessary.

Sanitising your ablution facilities and portable toilets

Once your facilities have been cleaned, it’s time to deoderise and remove any offending smells and to this end all toilets should be sprayed with an odour neutralising solution. Portable toilet holding tanks should be refilled with fresh chemical deoderising solution which are available in both liquid and packet forms. Although the former may be more concentrated, the packets might be easier to use and your particular circumstances will dictate which to use.

Refilling your portable toilet tanks

Liquid deodorisers should be mixed 100ml per 10 or 12 Lt of water and packets should be 1 portion per 120 – 12 Lt of water.

Be sure to regularly monitor your toilet facilities in order to determine the optimal servicing frequency in order to ensure they are always clean and inviting to one’s patrons.

Refilling and restocking your dispensers

At no point should toilet essentials such as toilet paper, liquid hand soaps or sanitisers, paper towels and anti odour spray or air freshener s ever run out. Toilets deployed to mass  gatherings such as sports or music events, be sure to have more than enough supplies such as toilet paper, hand sanitizer etc on hand for quick replenishment.

Where bins are available inside ablution facilities, these should be checked and emptied regularly.