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Nederlands (Dutch)
If you have to, you have to, even if finding a toilet in the city is an undertaking
You rarely think about it. Until a simple walk suddenly becomes a calculation and the city no longer invites you, but sets conditions. If you have to, you have to. Toilet crisis or not.
This text is about something banal and fundamental at the same time: what happens when a basic need is hardly given a place in the public space.
Plans around your bladder.
Getting older has its … consequences. You notice that you start planning your trips to the city differently. More consciously too. Along places where you can go to the toilet.
It is not a conscious fear, rather a silent calculation that always runs along.
Closed doors and old habits
Going to the toilet is a basic need, but the idea that it’s “private” or even “rude” to talk about it makes it something you have to prepare, plan or hide for.
It is such a universal human need that you would almost forget how invisible it has been in policy all these years.
Until you are in a Belgian city, in dire need, and above all: closed doors. Belgium is remarkably economical with public toilets. Not intentionally, but simply, that’s just how it is. You have probably already experienced this, too.
For years, the problem was put on hold and the responsibility was always ‘forwarded’, especially to the hospitality industry. Public toilets were not a basic facility, but an afterthought.
If you had to, you could simply pop into a café for a drink, couldn’t you?
‘Then go for a drink’
In theory that sounds simple, in practice it is not. Toilets are reserved for customers, so a simple need can quickly cost money.
And even then, access is not guaranteed. Even those who are willing to consume something can still be refused. We have experienced it.
Tools without warranty
And yes, there are tools:
- Google Maps (search by toilet or toilet)
- Apps such as Hoge Nood, by far the best-known and most widely used toilet app in the Netherlands and Belgium, with an online map showing you participating cafés, shops and public toilets in your area.
- And since last year, a toilet pass for people with a medical need. It is issued by patient organizations for people with medical needs, such as ostomy or bowel problems, and provides discreet access to toilets at participating cafes, shops and public places. The pass is not yet officially recognized, and is based on goodwill: the catering establishments and shops are not obliged to give you access.
But even those aids offer no security and are at most a plaster on the wound. They don’t increase the number of available public toilets, do they?
Because when you find them, they often turn out to be closed, dirty or simply inaccessible. And even with a toilet pass, you run the risk of being waved away, as if basic human needs were a form of privilege.
When toilets don’t hold
When a public or semi-public toilet already exists, it often does not last long. Vandalism, arson, pollution and abuse cause operators to drop out.
Toilets are often used as meeting places for drug use or other behavior for which they are not intended.
The result is predictable: neglect, demolition to closure. As a result, more and more public toilets are disappearing.
From no one, so from no one?
That raises an uncomfortable question. Why is it that people leave their toilets like this? It hardly takes any effort to check whether the room or pot is clean before you leave them.
Yet some seem to take a curious pleasure in not doing just that. And demolish or fill a toilet? Who does this at home?
Anonymity plays a role here: what belongs to no one does not have to be respected.
Without social control, responsibility disappears. Something we see more often.
The vicious circle of shortage and enforcement
Thus, the shortage of toilets becomes a vicious circle. Lack of follow-up leads to abuse, abuse to closure, closure to urinating in public and (gas) fines.
In the meantime, the policy hides behind enforcement, while the core of the problem remains untouched.
Cities that search, but stumble
Yet something is moving, but only recently. Due to the increasing aging population and growing tourism, the problem has found its way to the agenda. And some cities have not waited for measures from above and have started their own initiatives.
Ghent applies a mix of fixed public toilets and accessible sanitary facilities in public buildings. The city is making a visible effort to make toilets also available in busy places in the city, although it often remains searching and planning.
Antwerp , on the other hand, opts for a combination of fixed toilets and temporary solutions at events and peak times. Attention is paid to the distribution of toilet facilities across the city, but the scale of the city means that the offer still feels inadequate for many people.
Brussels is launching the toilet plan after it turned out that public toilets are scarce and often dirty.
And on the Belgian coast you see a smaller-scale approach, but those who venture outside the traditional routes and outside the summer season quickly notice how thin the network remains.
Cities acknowledge the problem, but struggle with the implementation
In short, what these cities have in common: they recognize the problem, but struggle with the implementation.
Maintenance costs money. Vandalism remains a bummer. And toilets rarely win over visible, ‘beautiful’ projects. Yet it is precisely these inconspicuous facilities that determine whether a city invites or slows down.
- The Netherlands are sick in the same bed.
- And that while cities such as Zûrich and Luxembourg show that it is feasable.
- Germany scores quite well in the number of toilet facilities, but they are usually paying.
- And France has made considerable efforts over the past decade. In the past, they would not have gotten you into a French toilet under any circumstances; today, most toilets on the way to Spain are remarkably clean.
The leader is by far America. There, going to the toilet is just part of life. Toilets are part of customer-friendliness and infrastructure: they are accessible, well-maintained and often privately financed in cafés, shopping malls or petrol stations.
Thanks to federal rules , they are wheelchair accessible and spread out enough for everyone. No hassle with mandatory consumption, closed doors or polluted spaces, just a place to go, as it should be.
The silent adjustment
And what are we doing here in the meantime? We don’t go into the city that much anymore. Or we choose our routes carefully. We no longer move freely, but strategically. That’s not a drama, but not a detail that you can overlook.
Perhaps it is time to stop seeing public toilets as a burden, but as what they are: a silent form of care.
A simple test for a humane city
As long as cities stimulate consumption without taking responsibility for what logically follows from it, and as long as citizens do not respect those facilities, the problem will remain. And the citizen is left with shame, frustration and fines.
This is even more true for women than for men. We can’t go to a urinal. And a pee spout? That is not an option for many of us.
The Flemish government recognizes the problem and is setting up supporting initiatives such as the toilet pass. but a binding Flemish framework that obliges municipalities and cities to provide a minimum of public toilets, and a structural funding program that guarantees a good network, are not forthcoming for the time being.
In other words, there are only incentives, recommendations and supporting initiatives, which is valuable in itself, but again not enforceable, resulting in large differences between municipalities and cities.
A missed opportunity, too bad.
Not everyone will like to hear it, but maybe take a look at the successful toilet policy of the Americans? Because… If you have to, you have to.
Emma
For those who want to read more about concrete experiences of people with Belgian toilets
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