Public toilet

For the film, see Public Toilet (film).

Main article: Toilet

A modern men's washroom, showing sinks embedded into a marble slab. Stainless uprights support the slab, and allow barrier-free access. Lighting is indirect, from behind the walls, with fluorescent lamps behind the glass brick windows in the walls. Such light mimics natural light in this underground parking garage. An open-concept glass labyrinth entrance is combined with partial architectural dividers supported on stainless steel columns.

A not-so-modern men's washroom

A public toilet (also called a bathroom, restroom, comfort room, powder room, toilet room, washroom, water closet, W.C., public lavatory, or the bog and the John for slang) is a public toilet facility — in contrast to a private usually residential toilet room, which may be a standalone water closet, or part of a bathroom. At a minimum, a public toilet can be a single unit featuring a toilet and hand basin for hand washing. Public toilets can also be larger facilities, which may include bathing facilities or showers, changing rooms and baby facilities.

Public toilets may be stand alone buildings or installations, or be contained within buildings such as railway stations, schools, bars, restaurants, nightclubs or filling stations. Public toilets can also be found on some public transport vehicles, for use by passengers. Public toilets are usually fixed facilities, but can also refer to smaller public portable toilets, or larger public portable toilets constructed as portable buildings.

Public toilets are commonly separated by gender into male and female facilities, although some can be unisex, particularly the smaller or single occupancy types. Both male and female toilets may incorporate toilet cubicles, while many male toilets also feature urinals. Increasingly, public toilets incorporate accessible toilets and features to cater for people with disabilities.

Public toilets may be unattended or be staffed by a janitor (possibly with a separate room), or attendant, provided by the local authority or the owner of the larger building. In many cultures it is customary to tip the attendant, while other public toilets may charge a small fee for entrance, sometimes through use of a coin operated turnstile. Some venues such as nightclubs may feature a grooming service provided by an attendant in the toilet.

Terminology

In American English, the term "restroom" usually denotes a public, commercial, or industrial personal hygiene facility designed for high throughput, whereas the term "bathroom" is used to denote a facility that is smaller and often in a residence, with lesser throughput (i.e., often for only one person at a time to use). The word originated in the United States, but "bathroom" is now more commonly used Some Americans prefer "restroom" over "bathroom" because public restrooms rarely have bathtubs. The word "washroom" is often used in the United States for a "laundry room" or utility room. In Canada, "washroom" is still the most common term used to refer to the room in the home, but items in the room may be described with the adjective "bathroom". This leads to the seeming paradox of the bathroom sink being located in the washroom. Public facilities, on the other hand, are always called "washrooms". As men's and ladies' facilities are not normally situated next to each other in Canadian department stores, however, it is more common for washrooms in those locations to be referred to simply as "the ladies' room" or "the men's room". The word "toilet" is normally used to refer only to the fixture itself; using it to refer to the room is often taken as a sign that the speaker is of low class. The word "washroom" is never used to mean "utility room" or "mud room" in Canada.

In Britain, Australia, Hong Kong (as "toilets"), Singapore (as "toilet") and New Zealand, the terms in use are "public toilet", "public lavatory" (becoming rare) and more informally, "public loo". In South Africa, toilet and restroom are commonly used. A "bathroom" is a room containing a bath, a "washroom" is a room where you can wash your hands, and a "restroom" is where you go to rest if you are tired; none of which would necessarily contain a toilet. Public toilets were traditionally signed as "Gentlemen" or "Ladies", and as the Gents or the Ladies; these terms remain in colloquial use.

In non-English speaking Europe, either the local translation of "toilet" (for example "toilette" in French), or "WC" (abbreviation for "water closet") are common. In Germany, toilets in buildings such as hotels are often labelled with the room number "00".

In the rest of the world (usually Africa, Middle East, and Southeast Asia) "toilet" is used.

Gender and public toilets

Separation by sex is so characteristic of public toilets that pictograms of a man or a woman are used to indicate where the respective toilets are. These pictograms are sometimes enclosed within standard forms to reinforce this information, with a circle representing a women's toilet and a triangle representing a men's facility.

Sex-separated public toilets are a source of difficulty for some people, such as those with children of a different sex, men caring for babies when only the women's toilet has been fitted with a baby change, or people whose gender may appear ambiguous to others, such as some transgender people.

A significant number of facilities have additional gender-neutral public toilets, also referred to as unisex bathrooms, to accommodate people with disabilities or elderly persons who may require assistance from a caregiver of the other gender.

Fixtures

Public toilets generally contain several of the following fixtures:

• Air fresheners or odour control systems
• Antiseptic handwash dispensers or soap dispensers - pump bottle or auto dispenser
• Bidets (not universal; most common in Western Europe)
• Garbage can
• Hand dryer - manual or with auto sensors
• Handwash faucets / taps - some lowered for children and handicapped
• Infant changing tables, often fold-down (more often in women's rooms but in Western countries increasingly common in men's rooms)
• Mirrors, usually over sinks
• Paper towels - often when hand dryers are not installed; sometimes with auto-sensors for touchless dispensing
• Sometimes showers are also present, often with soap, shampoo, or similar dispensers (often at truck stops)
• Toilets located within stalls with locking doors
• Urinals (almost exclusively in men's rooms; see female urinal)
• Vending machines dispensing condoms, diapers / nappies, painkillers, perfume, sanitary napkins or tampons

Modern public toilet architecture

The architect Frank Lloyd Wright claimed to have "invented the hung wall for the w.c. (easier to clean under)" when he designed the Larkin Administration Building in Buffalo, New York in 1904.

The most beautiful and assumedly the most photographed public toilet in the world is in Kawakawa/New Zealand. This was designed by the famous Austrian artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser

Hundertwasser-toilet in Kawakawa

Modern public toilets usually have the following features:

• Doorless entry (labyrinth entrance) prevents the spread of disease that might otherwise occur when coming in contact with a door. Doorless entry provides visual privacy while simultaneously offering a measure of security by allowing the passage of sound. Doorless entry also helps deter vandalism; fewer audible clues to another person entering discourages some vandals. Doorless entry may also be achieved simply by keeping an existing door propped open, closed only when necessary.
• Sensor-operated fixtures prevent the spread of disease by allowing patrons to circumvent the need to touch common surfaces. Sensor-operated fixtures also help conserve water by limiting the amount used per flush, and require less routine maintenance.

Service access and utilities passages

Modern public toilets often have a service entrance, utilities passages, and the like, that run behind all the fixtures. Wall-mount toilets that bolt on from behind the wall have replaced floor-mount toilets. Sensors are installed in a separate room, behind the fixtures. Usually the separate room is just a narrow corridor, or narrow passageway. Each sensor views through a small window into each fixture. Sometimes the metal plates that house the sensor windows are bolted on from behind, to prevent tampering. Additionally, all of the electrical equipment is safely behind the walls, so that there is no danger of electric shock. However, a RCCB must be (and usually is) still used for all such electrical equipment.

Futuristic architecture is often achieved through a juxtaposition of industrial concrete, glass brick, some high-quality black marble, and stainless steel structural supports, where the glass brick also serves to separate the service passage from the main area. The use of sensor-operated sinks, toilets, urinals, and hand dryers, together with service-installed lighting often adds to the modern aesthetic and functionality.

Service lighting consisting of windows that run all the way around the outside of the toilet uses electric lights behind the windows, to create the illusion of extensive natural light, even when the toilets are underground or otherwise do not have access to natural light. The windows are sometimes made of glass brick, permanently cemented in place. Lighting installed in service tunnels that run around the outside of the toilets provides optimum safety from electrical shock (keeping the lights outside the toilet), hygiene (no cracks or openings), security (no way for vandals to access the light bulbs), and aesthetics (clean architectural lines that maintain a continuity of whatever aesthetic design is present, e.g., the raw industrial urban aesthetic that works well with glass brick).

Older toilets do not often have service ducts and often in old toilets that have been modernized, the toilet cistern might be hidden in a purpose-built 'box' tiled over. Often old toilets might still have high-level cisterns in the service ducts. On the outside, the toilet will be flushed by a handle (just like an ordinary low-level cistern toilet) although behind the wall this handle will activate a chain. Sometimes a long flushing trough will be used to ensure that the cistern can be refilled quickly after dual flushes. This trend of hiding cisterns and fittings behind the walls started in the late 1950s in the United Kingdom and by the 1960s it was unusual for toilet cisterns to be visible in public toilets. In some buildings such as schools, however, a cistern can still be visible, although high-level cisterns had become old-fashioned by the 1970s and a lot of schools now have low-level cisterns.

Some toilets also function, in part, as changerooms, owing to their gender-segregated nature. For example, in beach areas, a portion of the building is equipped with benches so that persons can change into or out of their bathing suits.

Cleanliness

Dr Dipak Chatterjee of Mumbai newspaper Daily News and Analysis claims that Indian public toilet facilities are so unhygienic that people — especially women — who are vulnerable to infections should consider wearing adult diapers instead.

Some cities, like Philadelphia, are launching major efforts to install dozens of high-tech, self-cleaning public pay toilets in their heaviest pedestrian and tourist areas. Jack Sim, founder of the World Toilet Organization, has campaigned internationally for better, cleaner public toilets, particularly in developing nations.

Biosafety specification and biosecurity measures

Further information: Biosafety

and

Further information: Biosecurity

See also

• Aircraft lavatory
• Cottaging
• Gender-neutral toilet
• Latrine
• National Public Toilet Map (in Australia)
• Privatization of public toilets
• Sanisette
• Spray-and-Vac Cleaning
• Toilet
• Toilet granny
• Toilet seat
• Toilet seat cover

External links

• American Restroom Association America's advocate for the availability of clean, safe, well designed public restrooms
• Shutting down vandalism (modern washroom design)
• The use of glass brick as an industrial architectural aesthetic in underground washrooms/changerooms
• Australia's National Public Toilet Map shows the location of more than 14,000 public and private public toilet facilities across Australia.
• Public Toilets Database Locations of public toilets in 18 countries. New locations and comments can be added. Detailed information includes the geographic coordinates and quality of the facility.
• ToiletZone.net French website with toilets picture
• The Paradox of Public Toilets
• Needaloo The Uk Online Disabled Loo Locator
• Safe to Pee: A Gender Neutral Restroom Directory
• Hundertwasser's toilets New Zealand