EDUCATION & STUDENT FACILITIES
A GUIDE TO IMPROVING THE SCHOOL TOILET
What can be done to upgrade the UK’s school washrooms? Liam Mynes from Tork manufacturer Essity looks at a recent German School Toilet Summit and considers how we can learn from another nation’s actions.
A school toilet summit held in Germany this summer looked at ways of improving the country’s school washrooms.
Pupils had been complaining of issues such as bad smells, vandalism and sticky floors with 50% of students claiming their toilets were so disgusting that they avoided using them at all costs, and more than one in four admitted to limiting their food and drink intake during the day to avoid having to use the washroom.
These findings are all too familiar. At Essity, we carried out our own UK study into school washrooms a few years ago which revealed that 5% of secondary school students and 44% of primary school pupils never used the toilets at school.
Some felt the facilities were dirty or unsafe while others complained about a lack of soap or toilet paper. And 9% said they regularly refrained from eating or drinking during the school day to avoid having to use the loos, with a third claiming to suffer from headaches and concentration issues as a result.
We now discover that UK pupils are not alone in their dislike of school toilets. But the difference lies in the way each nation is tackling the issue.
As part of Germany’s first ever School Toilet Summit, the German Toilet Organisation staged a competition in which it asked for proposals on how to improve the school washroom. A total of 135 schools from 14 German states
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took part in the contest and pupils came up with a range of suggestions such as providing pot plants, disco balls, scent dispensers and mobile phone holders in the facilities.
Other ideas were to offer free period products and to implement a checklist to address common complaints. One entrant suggested teaching primary schoolchildren how to flush. And another idea – though hardly rocket science – was to supply plentiful supplies of soap and toilet paper.
These types of products are integral to the smooth running of any washroom. But in a busy facility with frequent traffic peaks it can be difficult to ensure that a supply is always available. There's also the fact that soap and paper can both contribute to an untidy environment if they are installed in an inappropriate system.
For example, soap drips or dirty soap bars on the basins will create an unsightly mess while soap on the floor could cause a slipping hazard. Conventional toilet rolls might be thrown around by unruly pupils or left on the floor where they will quickly become wet, soiled and unusable. This will lead to the supply running out too rapidly and the washrooms becoming even more messy, while some rolls could end up down the toilets where they could cause expensive blockages.
And loose hand towels left on the units are likely to become wet while some will end up on the floor, again creating litter and causing run-outs.
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