Top
Best
New

Posted by herbertl 6 hours ago

Where did all the public bathrooms go?(daily.jstor.org)
112 points | 200 commentspage 3
forinti 5 hours ago|
I used one these things in Portugal a few years ago.

They are definitely not thought for women.

forinti 2 hours ago|
But I have to say that if you have a very cheap solution for 25% of your use cases you should definitely use it.

What you can't do is neglect the other 75%.

jonshariat 6 hours ago||
Something else I've noticed, garbage cans are disappearing.

I had some trash in my car I needed to get rid of: McDonalds? None outside, Tacobell? none outside, CVS? none outside OR inside, The entire rest of that shopping center? nope.

Luckily gas stations still have them but its sad to see these community service type things disappear.

devin 5 hours ago||
This reminds me of a story I heard (read?) a long time ago. At Disney World they had a rule about a garbage can being within a 10 foot distance of basically anywhere in the park. The logic was that when a garbage can is nearby, there is additional social pressure not to litter, and the result was that they were able to save money on park cleanup because people used the cans.

When I see lone overflowing garbage cans in big cities I think about this.

etc-hosts 5 hours ago|||
I haul my garbage home in my backpack like a good little global citizen but the lack of trash cans in San Francisco is crazy

https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/SAN-FRANCISCO-Trash-c...

why_at 1 hour ago||
I feel like there are plenty personally. I usually don't have to walk more than a block or two to find one.

That article is from 20 years ago by the way

hlynurd 5 hours ago|||
You would think it's in the interest of whoever is responsible for keeping those areas clean to offer garbage cans.
xahrepap 5 hours ago|||
I live by a park. These places don't care for the same reason the park doesn't care: the wind blows it all in my yard, not their problem anymore.
ssl-3 5 hours ago|||
It would be, if the responsible parties were making rational decisions.
jerlam 4 hours ago||
It is unlikely the low-ranked employees responsible for cleaning up garbage are making decisions on whether to construct or retain garbage cans.
ssl-3 4 hours ago||
Agreed. It was never my intent to suggest that they would be doing so.

So move up the management ladder, if you will, until a party that is responsible for making this kind of decision is reached. That's the class of party of which I was speaking, and where I suggested that irrational decisions are being made.

Someone -- at some point -- did make a decision to eliminate outdoor trash cans at these establishments. They used to be present and no longer are, and they didn't disappear on their own.

jerlam 3 hours ago|||
I'm not sure that anyone in the management ladder is affected. People don't generally choose a fast food restaurant or convenience store based on the cleanliness of their parking lots, so sales isn't going to be affected. Nor is staff, already cut to minimal levels, going to be given additional hours to keep the parking lots clean.

There even might be a disincentive to have garbage cans if they can't be maintained. People who don't litter will either take the extra step of going indoors, or they might leave it in their own car to throw out later. Whereas people who do litter will do so regardless of when there are trash cans. By removing outdoor trash cans, you've "saved" the staff the time to monitor and clear out those trash cans.

bluGill 1 hour ago|||
People do chose fast food by the neighborhood. When I was at McDonald's - 30 years ago so this may have changed - corporate policy was you would clean your parking lot and everyone for one block. We were encouraged to paint any abandoned building in the one block range at our expense just to ensure the area looked nice.
ssl-3 3 hours ago|||
If that's really your take on this then I have no option but to accept it.

Let's move forward.

What incentivized them to provide the trash cans to begin with, might you suppose? They aren't cheap to buy, or to maintain, or to keep emptied daily (or as they fill up, or whatever). But yet: They were things that existed, and their existence was definitely deliberate.

What motivates companies that still provide outdoor trash cans to continue to do so?

xienze 2 hours ago|||
> So move up the management ladder, if you will, until a party that is responsible for making this kind of decision is reached. That's the class of party of which I was speaking, and where I suggested that irrational decisions are being made.

No matter what, big or small, it's always a Republican's fault, huh.

ButlerianJihad 1 hour ago|||
One of the primary goals of the pandemic and lockdowns was to eliminate cost centers for every business.

If you notice how courtesy services disappeared, and many facilities were closed, because of a lack of staff or funds to clean them and maintain them.

It has actually been difficult to get into a restroom at certain restaurants, even now; sometimes I will find a handwritten sign there like “Employees Only” which is against health codes.

I rode a scooter to a “Drive-In” burger restaurant last month. Not a drive-thru, mind you, but a place where folks pulled up in cars and carhops served them, and they ate while parked. And this place had picnic tables, so I ordered a burger combo and tried to wash my hands.

There was no restroom available, and I contacted the order-taker guy and asked to confirm, and then I asked to cancel my order. He said “Your order is ready!” and I said hell naw, if you don’t have a restroom then you’re not serving anyone, so I got my refund...

what 1 hour ago|||
> I had some trash in my car I needed to get rid of

Bring it home and use your own trash can? I don’t really understand why you need to immediately get rid of it.

curtisblaine 5 hours ago|||
In city centers it's usually counter-terrorism: it's easy to throw a timed bomb in a metal garbage can and flee the scene, so they got rid of them (London did because of IRA, and of course now they have Islamic terrorism). Outside of city centers it's about (lack of) recycling: it's easier to check if you're recycling correctly in your home bin than public bins.
lesuorac 4 hours ago|||
Why would you throw a bomb into a garbage can? Who loiters next to one?

100% just drop it behind you as you exit the tram. Way better metal container for blasting.

"Counter-terrorism" just means nobody thought about it more than 2 seconds or else they'd have a more specific reason.

curtisblaine 2 hours ago||
It was pretty common with the IRA, apparently. They hid bombs in metal garbage cans and used the shrapnel as a damage multiplier. I think they did that at a commercial center and killed several people. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-23695239
quickthrowman 1 hour ago|||
Explosion resistant trash receptacles do exist but they’re pricey so it makes sense London didn’t replace theirs. The most common place to see them is in airports.
tamimio 5 hours ago||
Blame the raccoons!
curtisblaine 5 hours ago||
Fun that this article concentrates on gay sex restrictions and pressure by temperance advocates - two "enemies" that conveniently serve a certain social agenda - while public toilets, at least in Europe, died because of heroin users in the 70s and 80s (they used bathrooms to inject, often leaving their syringes behind, and that became a real problem and society-wide panic during the AIDS boom) and because of the increasing number of homeless people later - who used to clean themselves in public toilets with a sink and more often than not left them in terrible conditions.
paulpauper 1 hour ago|
drug users ruin everything. it's why we cant have nice things anymore
polski-g 6 hours ago||
Downstream of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_to_End_Pay_Toilets_i...
tomjakubowski 6 hours ago||
Fascinating stuff. And what a logo.

> Starting a national crusade to cast away coin-operated commodes, Gessel told newsmen, "You can have a fifty-dollar bill, but if you don't have a dime, that metal box is between you and relief."

I'm sympathetic to this argument. Carrying around loose change with US-style billfold wallets has never been convenient, and back in the day you'd often find yourself without change for a bus fare or a pay phone and so on in a critical moment.

Today, though, almost everyone carries either a contactless credit card or a phone with an NFC wallet. I would pay $0.25 for access to a clean public toilet if I could swipe one of those instead of having to carry change.

LA Metro has these restroom facilities at their rail stations, which are free for a 10 minute visit but require an access code on your phone or a standalone entry pass. I've never used one, but heard great things. https://thronelabs.co/

ipdashc 2 hours ago|||
> Today, though, almost everyone carries either a contactless credit card or a phone with an NFC wallet. I would pay $0.25 for access to a clean public toilet if I could swipe one of those instead of having to carry change.

This is one of those things that gets ruined by credit card transaction fees though, right?

It is kinda depressing that after all these fintech companies and society's ~decade long scam-filled obsession with cryptocurrency, we still don't really have a good solution for microtransactions. Credit card companies still take that fixed fee everywhere, right?

lotsofpulp 1 hour ago||
It gets ruined by the government choosing to not operate an electronic money transfer system as infrastructure similar to cash.
warkdarrior 2 hours ago|||
> Today, though, almost everyone carries either a contactless credit card or a phone with an NFC wallet. I would pay $0.25 for access to a clean public toilet if I could swipe one of those instead of having to carry change.

Nowadays it'd be $5.25 per use, plus tip (22% or more).

baggy_trough 5 hours ago||
Another example of completely counterproductive interference in the free market, this time eliminating public toilets more or less entirely because you can't make money from them and the state is too incompetent to provide them.
2OEH8eoCRo0 1 hour ago||
Sperry Rand building, 14th floor, Morgan Apparel. Mention my name- they'll give you the key.
lurkerforawhile 4 hours ago||
there's a market for a gig-economy app where someone brings a toilet to you.
beardyw 5 hours ago||
Yes, where are you going to take a bath, in public.

It's interesting that this subject is awash with euphemisms. At least pissoir is properly descriptive.

testing22321 5 hours ago||
Friends were just in Australia and were immensely impressed by not only the ubiquitous public bathrooms, but also how well maintained and clean they are.

Tons of free to use BBQs too.

morninglight 4 hours ago||
One advanced civilization has tens of thousand of free public toilets.

https://lazyholidayplanner.com/essential-tools/japan-toilet-...

https://www.cnn.com/travel/gallery/japanese-public-toilet-ph...

https://www.toilet-map-jp.com/en

https://toiletrix.org/toilets/japan

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Public_toilets_i...

yboris 8 minutes ago|
Plus, virtually every convenience store in Japan has a clean and ready-to-use bathroom. And there is a very high density of convenience stores. Bathrooms everywhere!
More comments...