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FLUSH WITH SUCCESS
This month, Lee Baker, PR and Media Manager for the British Cleaning Council looks ahead to World Toilet Day, and reveals more about a new app which could change the way we hunt for the nearest toilet facilities.
Leaves falling off the trees, the nights closing in, and football managers getting the sack, means autumn is finally upon us. But 2015 hasn’t quite fizzled out just yet, as there’s still a few important dates in the cleaning industry calender.
One of which is World Toilet Day on November 19th, which this year carries extra significance for the BCC, as the British Toilet Association is using the occasion to officially launch its interactive toilet map.
Campaigning for good, accessible public toilets in the UK is vital, but so too is highlighting
the issue of sanitation around the world.
The project was able to get off the ground initially after the Council awarded the BTA a £10,000 grant in 2013. Being joint owners of the Cleaning Show means the BCC is able to make funding available for new projects that can help the cleaning industry in some way.
The toilet map, which is an interactive app that can be used on mobile phones, was something the Council was extremely excited about, and everybody has been following its development very closely.
Raymond Martin, Chairman of the BTA, has been relentless in his quest to make the toilet map happen. He has
26 | Tomorrow’s Cleaning November 2015
secured extra help from Mencap, who are now fully behind the project, and has battled every obstacle that’s come along to get it ready for its launch.
The initial idea was to give elderly and disabled people a tool to show them where specialised toilet units are located - giving them greater freedom when planning journeys. But Raymond now believes the app could be useful to all sections of society, and so is hoping corporate sponsors may now be interested in coming on-board.
World Toilet Day is the perfect occasion to launch this new innovation, as it brings to public attention this hugely important, but rarely mentioned, aspect of our everyday lives. Campaigning for good, accessible public toilets in the UK is vital, but so too is highlighting the issue of sanitation around the world.
The UN has estimated that around 2.6 billion people – that’s half the world’s population – don’t have access to toilets and proper sanitation. One of the goals the UN is hoping to achieve is making the availability of water and sanitation available to everyone by 2030 – no mean feat.
Being British we, of course, get a little embarrassed discussing toilets, so Water Aid is getting around this by encouraging us to literally indulge in a bit of toilet humour for World Toilet Day. They want people to hold comedy nights, have toilet-themed laughs, and are even holding a competition to find the best toilet joke. It’s a very innovative way of putting a difficult issue in the spotlight.
There’s no comedy or themed events planned for the BTA’s toilet map, just a recognition that the project is now ready for the public to start using. Raymond is the first to admit that there’s still a lot of work to be done, as getting every toilet in the UK logged into the system takes time. But he wants it launched so the public can start benefiting from it.
For the BCC it’s a proud moment, as it’s exactly what the grant system was set up to do, and the Council is now actively looking for new ideas to fund. But, as the BTA experience has shown, it’s not just inspiration that’s required, there’s an enormous amount of perspiration needed to get a project off the ground.
www.britishcleaningcouncil.org
twitter.com/TomoCleaning
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