Germany might be renowned for its cleanliness and order, but the nation’s toilets seem to tell a different story. In 2023, one study found that half of German school students would rather hold it in than relieve themselves in the school loos. But no more. The first German School Toilet Summit was held this month to tackle the issue. To make toilets more appealing to young people, the German Toilet Organization awarded prizes totalling €50,000 (£42,000) to school pupils with the most innovative suggestions for improving the hygiene of public facilities. One of the winners, Hendrik Simon, 14, said of his school toilets: “There was urine on the floor, which was very sticky, and it stank … The mood was very depressing.”
You might scoff at our European neighbours, who have a reputation for speaking plainly about bowel movements, sitting down to wee (even the men) and examining their own “fecal health”, aided by the country’s Flachspüler, or in-shelf toilets. But they’ve got the right idea in getting young people to consider the grossness of public conveniences. Because the hygiene and accessibility of our public facilities is crucial to public life.
Shared toilets, as anyone online knows, have become a focal point in the culture wars. They show up the most obvious difference between the sexes. They also, very importantly, show us the divide between the decent upstanding citizens of the world and the absolutely feral miscreants.
At a former workplace, a mystery unflushable poo became something of legend, partly because it had been left there, in the unisex loos, with an entire metal fork wedged into it. A couple of times, when I’ve been desperate, I’ve crept into the men’s toilets – and they’re rotten. No wonder some men prefer to go in the middle of the street. But it’s grim for the rest of us, and even elevated alfresco wees – via outdoor urinals – reek and leak.
But if men’s toilets are the literal pits, women’s toilets still aren’t perfect. There are the seats rendered sticky by hovering worriers, cardboard rolls used in lieu of paper, tampons bursting out of stinky bins and hand-dryers blasting dirt everywhere.
And what should be so glaringly obvious is that public toilets are so rarely fit for anyone’s purposes. Despite 24% of working age people in the UK having some sort of disability, in a 2023 survey by the disability charity Euan’s Guide, 71% of respondents said they’d come across a toilet they’d been unable to use, and 67% said that the most common problem with toilets they’d visited is that they’re dirty. Meanwhile, A&E departments, I’ve recently discovered, can have entire wards of patients sharing two toilets. Drunks, immunocompromised patients and assorted carers all will themselves to enter a room wafting with a miasma of bodily odours and secretions. Is this how we care for the most needy?
In the UK, our school loos are no better than Germany’s – they are still hideous repositories of fetid grub, teacher friends tell me. And despite David Cameron once bragging about holding a wee in for nine hours, it’s bad for us and can lead to all sorts of health problems. Is this how we treat our young?
Outside our public buildings, things are just as bad. Since 2018, we’ve seen a 14% reduction in public loos, which exacerbates the divide between those who can afford to use private toilets and those who can’t. I recently had a standoff with a barman who refused me access to the pub’s toilet until I asked for a pint. I paid up, he began pulling, then I sped to the loo, leaving the pint to go warm. I was delighted by the relief, but of course I was a mug, paying £6 for access to a service that should, technically, be free.
Lack of toilet provision is not only impeding disabled people and poorer people’s day-to-day public lives, but also exemplifying the life-inhibiting drudgery that too many workers must endure. As our consumerist society pushes for more at-home deliveries, drivers and riders are at the mercy of their zero-hours contracts, harsh schedules and the general state of toilets, peeing in bottles and flinging them out into our driveways and gutters, sometimes obliged to drop trousers in whatever dark spot they can find.
People deserve better. Of course it’s people, too, who ruin public toilets by treating them disgustingly. But my firm belief is that the higher quality provision we’re given, the better we’ll behave in and around them. So let’s have toilets with seats, toilets with big doors, toilets with working (not splashing) water, toilets that keep people safe and looked after and present in the world. The Germans might call the bathroom a badezimmer, but something decidedly good is simmering over there. And we should all take note.
Sophie Wilkinson is a freelance journalist who specialises in entertainment, celebrity, gender and sexuality
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