Why are we still building public restroom facilities designed for mid 20th century families rather than for the dynamic twenty-first century global society in which we now live?    A rethink of public restroom design would solve the dilemma that Lisa A. Fram outlines in  Men? Women? Parents Face Public Bathroom Dilemma: How old is too old to use an opposite-sex bathroom? (This Associated Press piece appears under various titles and has been picked up by media outlets across the country, including today’s Oregonian.)

All of us, including children and adults in the company of opposite-sex caregivers, certainly deserve protection from inappropriate contact with strangers when we use the toilet.    While parents and caregivers welcome the family restrooms that larger establishments offer, having three separate facilities – for men, women, and families – is costly.  Moreover, the traditional layout of men’s and women’s gang-style restrooms – with their scantily partitioned stalls often hidden behind solid entry doors – offers little in the way of protection and comfort.

According to the PHLUSH Public Restroom Design Principles, a vast improvement would be a series of individual direct entry toilet rooms which can be used by men or women. Doors would be designed to ensure privacy, safety, and meet the cultural requirements of international visitors.  A three-to-five-inch gap at the bottom of otherwise complete doors would allow users waiting or washing their hands in the communal area to observe a user who had fallen to the floor and to call for help.

Americans have lived in mixed-gender homes and shared bathrooms with minimal fuss.  For more than a generation, male and female students have been sharing restrooms in university dormitories.  On the basis of this experience we can learn to accommodate mixed use in public restrooms.   Restrooms with common areas may even foster civil behavior and cleanliness; for example, more people may wash their hands after using the toilet.

At first people may feel minor discomfort about using unisex facilities just as folks born before 1960 had to get used to haircuts and gym workouts in the presence of the opposite sex.  Minor discomfort is a small price to pay for benefits in safety, efficiency of use (no more lines at the women’s!), and cost effectiveness (reduced size of construction; no need for male and female cleaners, etc)

So isn’t it time for a thorough rethink of public restroom design?  But before we race back to the drawing board, we need to do our homework.   First, we need nation-wide research on user attitudes, behavior and preference and inquiry into the policy implications for public health and urban planning.    Second, we need to design for specific locales by listening to community members from the start and involving them in design workshops and in planning for operations and maintenance.   Third, we’ll have to address code issues by requesting appropriate variances and working toward change in current  building and plumbing construction requirements.

For the moment, free standing, open space restroom buildings provide the best opportunity for innovation in public restroom design.  An excellent example is San Diego’s award -winning Kellogg Park Comfort Station.  The small footprint structure combines outdoor washbasins, showers, drinking fountains and beautiful, educational public art with 10 regular and 2 ADA-compliant unisex stalls.    Doors of each toilet room provide privacy but open directly onto the seaside park, offering parents the option of using the family stalls or keeping track of their kids from a distance as they use the facility on their own.

Several solid pieces of journalism  have burst on the scene recently and threaten to break  through our society’s prevailing “flush and forget” mind set

“A Fecal Matter” The cover story in the June 2nd Willamette Week takes on Portland’s sewers.  Pulitizer-prize winning Nigel Jaquiss looks at the city’s groaning infrastructure, salutes the engineer-heros in the Bureau of Environmental Services who patch up century old terra cotta pipes and other “fragile antiques,” and documents the growing number of eastside homeowners confronted with reversing flows of excrement.   In the words of one BES expert, “If it’s a main sewer line with high velocity and there’s a failure when all that volume’s coming through, it’s going to come into your house like a geyser.”

While sounding the wake up call, Jaquiss inadvertently throws up a slew of unasked questions.  Does waterborne sanitation make sense? Why do we shit in our drinking water only to clean it up again?   Can healthy watersheds survive a centralized sewer system in a city with a growing population?  What havoc do the effluents and biosolids wreck once they leave the treatment plant?

Good start, Mr. Jaquiss, but there is much more to this.  A good first article in what we hope will be a series.

“The Pee and Poop Show“ “Defecating into fresh drinking water is kind of an insane thing,” says Laura Allen during a genteel interview in her leafy green Oakland backyard among dwarf fruit trees, chickens and rain barrels.   This is a great introduction to appropriate urban technologies and shows how central management of human waste is to them.   Allen, who is co founder of Greywater Action,  gives a friendly tour of her home bathroom and its relation to the lush and productive garden that surrounds the house.   Noting that “your body naturally separates pee and poop”, she shows off her urine diverting composting toilet, which is a picture of good taste in the use of Mexican tile and low cost.

Allen makes cogent arguments for urine harvesting and its reuse to reclaim the phosphorus, nitrogen and potassium that plants desperately need.   There is no better way to grasp the need to close nutrient loops than to practice at the household level.   In fact, Allen’s recently study entitled “Backyard Urine Recycling in the United States of America” reveals that Portland is on the leading edge.   Since every year 850 billions gallons of sewage from centralized urban systems flow into streams, rivers, lakes, and the sea, small systems developed by homeowners and neighbors will likely show the way forward.  Stay tuned.

Janaia Donaldson is the gentle host of  ”The Pee and Poop Show” and author of the online Journal on permaculture and locally reliant living for challenging times.  Peak Moment TV covers positive responses to energy decline and climate change through local community action  This 28-minute episode is good stuff.  If you’re tending your garden with no time to watch, try the audio.

The World Toilet Crisis This full length documentary which aired on January 10 in Current TV’s Vanguard series is where the rubber hits the road.   This a film  that eschews all euphemisms that have so long falsely buoyed the sanitation and clean water movements.  ”Water is dirty because there is shit in the water.   You are drinking shit,”  says corespondent Adam Yamamuchi. “You don’t really hear that very often.”

“I didn’t start off wanting to make a gross-out movie. But two days into shooting, I had to admit that I was pretty disgusted,”   Yamaguchi writes in the Huffington Post.   From visiting a sewage treatment plant in Los Angeles to talking to people in the open defecation field of India and Indonesia, Yamaguchi and his team track shit.  With graphic precision they trace contamination and pollution and show the devastation it wrecks on health and well being, concluding that very little has been done about this global crisis.   In order to make progress on the issue, says Yamamuchi, “We’re all going to have to be willing to get a little grossed out.”    Don’t miss the trailer , which will help you get ready for the film.

PHLUSH has received a small grant from the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability. We will be able to meet requests for Restroom Location signs and postcards thanks to a City of Portland BPS grant.    We are now waiting for the check, which will be issued by the Northeast Coalition of Neighborhoods.   Lan Nguyen of Orchid Salon will manage the project to produce and distribute 40 window signs and 5,000 postcards, which many retailers also post as signs.

Edgewater NW has donated three high quality waterless urinals. We are grateful for the donation of three Waterless brand waterless urinals from Robert Van Creveld, owner of Edgewater NW.  His firm had received the units as samples but no longer carries the line.  Robert and his wife Barbara attended the April 27th PHLUSH event, where the three urinals were exhibited.

PHLUSH started reconsidering the use of urinals – particularly temporary ones – following discussions at the OTCTNA Livability Committee and observations that public urination is largely a weekend phenomenon involving middle class males and females.   Robert is a water and environment specialist who became aware of neighborhood efforts at a World Water Day event organized by Recode Oregon.   Now stored in the OTCTNA office, the urinals were shown at the March Livability Committee meeting.  Along with Recode Oregon and Cloacina.org, PHLUSH continues to let the community know about them. Later this year, with a view to using the urinals appropriately and creatively, we’ll have a design competition, a design charrette or both.

Fashion Buddha creates wonderful PHLUSH PSA. Creatives from the Old Town Chinatown firm Fashion Buddha surprised PHLUSH on the day of our event with a very cool public service announcement, which is painstakingly crafted in stop motion animation.  It’s on their website and on ours.   A huge THANK YOU to these wonderful neighbors!

Portland may host the World Toilet Summit in late 2011. During April, Christopher Yarrow brought together a committee to consider hosting the World Toilet Summit in Portland.  Representatives from Travel Portland, the Portland Business Alliance and the Office of Commissioner Randy Leonard met twice to create a list of issues that Christopher is discussing with the World Toilet Organization.

While the 2007 Summit in Delhi attracted nearly 2000 delegates, recent conferences have been much smaller.   With the assistance of a professional event manager, there is still time to get financial commitments for a modest conference, which would showcase Portland’s livability while providing much needed training opportunities for Americans, particularly in the increasingly important area of ecological sanitation.

We continue to speak out on sanitation issues and toilet availability. On April 26, Carol McCreary presented “Everybody’s Gotta Go” summarizing the PHLUSH Design Principles to Sunnyside Environmental School Urban Planning students.  On April 30, Jeff Holiman spoke on composting toilets to the same audience. On April 11, Carol made a 5-minute presentation to the Research Club entitled “Bike-Transported Waterless Urinals.”   At the same event, Mathew Lippincott spoke on urine reuse and exhibited his $8 waterless urinal.   On April 14, Mathew presented his early prototype to the Livability Committee.  On May 7, Barb Lescher and Lan Nguyen represented PHLUSH at the NW District Association Block Party, which preceded the CoHo Theater performance to benefit Neighbors West-Northwest.

We have been responding to inquiries and working on selected code issues. A Corvallis public restroom advocate contacted us with a question about the number of restroom locations required in a big box store.  The International Code Council and the American Restroom Association were helpful in orienting us to the code and we in turn referred the woman to the appropriate State of Oregon plumbing code official. We continue to work with Recode Oregon as they advocate sound rules for graywater reuse and research code issues for ecological sanitation.  Finally, we are tracking potty parity issues, that is the ratio of toilets required for men and women, for the International Code Council. Congressman Ed Towns (D-NY), Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, has just introduced HR 4869, or the “Restrooms Gender Parity in Federal Buildings Act”, which will provide more equity of access in federal buildings.

Upcoming meetings PHLUSH meets Monday, May 17 at 5:30 pm at Orchid Salon, 203 NW Second Ave.  Everyone is welcome. Contact is Lan at 503.226.9500.  Recode Oregon meets May 28 at 6:30 pm, St. Francis Church, Che Room, SE 12th Ave and SE Oak. Info on activities at www.recodeoregon.net

What a surprise !   Talk about great neighbors!

Fashion Buddha has just sent this fabulous new stop motion PHLUSH PSA !!!!    It was received by PHLUSH Co-Founder Lan Nguyen on the day of a special PHLUSH event.

Orchid Salon, across the street from the generous band of creatives in the historic Merchant Hotel, is the site of the April 27 gathering to thank PHLUSH supporters and to introduce Recode Oregon, Cloacina.org,  NW Edgewater and Milepost 5 artist in residence Jay Critchley.

The event, which features an exhibit of waterless urinals, is at 5 pm at 203 NW 2nd, one block from the Old Town Chinatown MAX.

World Water Day Celebration Recode Oregon threw a great event at SEA Change Gallery on March 22   Great talk by Rep Ben Cannon who sponsored the gray water legislation in Salem. David Osborn showed the film of backyard graywater systems at currently undisclosed locations. Lasun Unger mobilized fine cuisine and Molly Danielsson made this great poster!   In another decade or two it will be unthinkable to flush a toilet with precious drinking water!

Helping out the Neighborhood Change starts with awareness and folks are finally talking about the yucky issue of [cross-class, cross gender] public urination.  Howard Weiner’s  Livability Committee has been great forum for the Old Town Chinatown Neighborhood Association to discuss the issue.  Consider joining the next meeting on Apr 11 at 11:30 at 232 NW 6th. Stay tuned for  announcement of an innovative step toward a solution.

World Toilet Summit in Portland? Thanks to Christopher Yarrow,  WTO leaders received packets inviting them to consider PDX for 2011.  And they are.  Now Christopher is bringing together specialists who will evaluate feasibility and funding.  It would be so cool to finally get some local training in closed loop ecological sanitation techniques as we move away from the endless cycle of fouling our drinking water and then cleaning it up again.

Restroom Location Sign Project Lan Nguyen did such a good job lunching the project that everybody now want signs telling where neighborhood public restroom are.  PHLUSH has a grant proposal for Phase II into the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability and fingers crossed.

Design Work The International Code Council has a team drafting international guidelines for public toilet design to be presented at the next World Toilet Summit. Carol McCreary is working with toilet design experts on five continents to prepare sections on General Provisions and Potty Parity (in other words Why are their such long lines at the women’s restroom?)

Help us build capacity? We’re starting to get inquiries from all over.  Folks who want to know about plumbing codes.  Folks who want bumper stickers. The recent Alaska Library Association conference featured five PHLUSH-T-shirt-wearing librarians passed out our brochures and business cards. Berkeley park activists called to inquire about better restrooms for homeless people, including the Loo.  The American Restroom Association even  refers people to us.

Join us! So we don’t become overwhelmed as we reach in new directions, we need to build capacity.  We welcome volunteers with ideas and diverse skills, including technical, scientific research, communications, advocacy, and non-profit management.  Join us at our next regular meeting  Monday, April 19 at 5:30 pm at Orchid Salon, 203 NW Second Ave.  Questions?

Observed globally on March 22, World Water Day provides a special opportunity to celebrate gray water reuse in Oregon.   Thanks to the efforts of gray water champions like Rep. Ben Cannon and the folks at Recode Oregon, gray water reuse is now legal in our state.

To mark this major step towards a more sustainable Oregon, Recode is hosting a celebration at SEA Change Gallery from 5:30-7:30 pm on Monday, March 22.

Recode Oregon invites the public to celebrate this victory, while learning  about gray water and supporting Recode’s statewide organizing efforts.  Rep. Cannon will be the special guest and there will be food, drinks and fun!

The evening includes Recode’s new video about gray water systems, updates on rulemaking by the DEQ Gray Water Advisory Committee, and a sneak preview of Recode’s new EcoSanitation campaign, in which PHLUSH is a partner !

This celebration is a benefit for Recode’s statewide organizing tour to connect people throughout the state who are working to create sustainable culture by changing laws and regulations to encourage sustainable building and land use. This tour will culminate in a state wide Recode forum to strategize on future projects and campaigns.

$5-50 sliding scale donations requested.  SEA Change Gallery is located at 625 NW Everett Street, #110, in Portland.

Although PHLUSH is willing to take on problems others don’t want to deal with, we’ve been pretty stymied by public urination.  Our Old Town Chinatown neighborhood now has great 24/7 public toilets so we’re losing patience with the practice and hate the results. When the temperature drops, it’s embarrassing to walk over those frozen stripes across the sidewalk. Clean ups are costly and we all bear the costs.  And there are growing complaints about the toll that urine is taking on newly restored historic buildings as well as new ones.

At the same time, everyone urinates.  You have to question the fairness of criminalizing urination, particularly when signage is inadequate and visitors don’t know where toilets are.   Old Town Chinatown is a transportation hub, with travelers arriving round the clock.   Nightlife patrons are still our customers, even after the bars close. Homeless men and women who find relative safety sleeping on our streets may be reluctant to pack up their belongings and walk 7 or 8 minutes to the nearest toilet.

Into this messy, discomfiting situation comes a bold out-of-the-box proposal: the wheelie bin urinal.   The brainchild  24-year old Swiss designer Stephen Bischof , it consists of an ordinary  wheeled plastic recycling bin  fitted with a 10-inch funnel.  The funnel transfers urine into the base which is designed to convert it into bio fertilizer rich in nitrates, phosphorus, and potassium.  The youth designer then field tested his invention on the streets of London, tracking use  on closed circuit video.

This small-footprint innovation in ecological sanitation has been showcased by the BBC, acclaimed by the design community, and  favorably reviewed by eco-sanitation experts.

Bischof is currently collaborating with the Design Against Crime Research Center,  a socially responsive, practice-led research centre located at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, University of the Arts London.

This is great stuff.  How about Portland designers getting together to tackle the really hard livability questions? Issues like signage might be elegant and easy.

In 2010 PHLUSH has the opportunity to take local solutions to an international audience.  We’re serving on a Technical Advisory Committee  led by the International Code Council and the World Toilet Organization to prepare global guidelines for public toilet design and operation.  The Portland Loo has gotten some attention. Isn’t it likely that if we put our heads together, we can come up with a dozen ideas as good or better?

Let’s do it!   And thank you, Stephen Bischof, for the inspiration.

Good news today from Washington, DC for stressed passengers.

The Washington Post reports an announcement by the capital’s Metro that there will be  restrooms for riders at every station on its new Silver Line.    The American Restroom Association has long advocated for toilet availability along the extensive light rail system. Today’s victory is thanks to a change in the Virginia building code.  As of 2006, Virgina has required public restrooms in new constructions.

While there are toilets at a number of existing Metro stations, riders  have to know about their existence, ask the station manager for a key and then find them hidden behind doors marked “Fire Equipment Cabinet” or “Authorized Personnel Only.”

Each of the eleven new stations that will open in 2013 on the line serving Dulles Airport will have four private stalls, with two for men and two for women.

PHLUSH considers unisex stalls more efficient and better for potty parity, but  applauds any increase in toilet access.   At three of the future Metro stations, restrooms will be located outside of the turnstiles, making them truly public facilities.

Meanwhile Federal Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood today announced new regulations protecting the rights of passengers to use toilets in planes that are held on the tarmac after pulling away from the gate.  The new regulations stipulate that: “Carriers are required to provide adequate food and potable drinking water for passengers within two hours of the aircraft being delayed on the tarmac and to maintain operable lavatories and, if necessary, provide medical attention.”

The Feds acted only after the airlines failed to enact a passengers bill of rights, after a bill introduced by Barbara Boxer got stuck in the Senate, and after a court struck down similar legislation in New York.

While the new regulation Enhancing Airline Passenger Protection, should put an end to the horror stories,  pundits at the Wall Street Journal and The Atlantic point out that the measure offers no compensation for inconvenienced passengers.  The fine for non- compliance $27,000 per passenger, which of course goes to the government.   Passengers don’t even get a partial ticket refund!

We’re happy to see that all presentations from the World Toilet Summit on December 2-4 are now on line.  Here  they are  for Day 1,  Day 2 (includes our PHLUSH presentations), and Day 3.

Since returning from Singapore, we’ve had to tackle the backload of work here and our reporting on the Summit has slowed down.  In fact, we only got through Day 1.  Now that we have all the presentations  we’ll insert them and move forward with the report.  The discussions which followed the presentations were extremely interesting and we look forward to sharing our notes.

PHLUSH remains extremely grateful to our friends in Portland’s Old Town Chinatown community and beyond who got us to Singapore.    Thank you everyone!  You made us proud and we feel accountable to you.