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School toilets: a new approach?

Published 13th September, 2024 by Neil Nixon

School toilets: a new approach?

As children across the country go back to school, Essity looks at how the German Toilet Organisation is striving to improve school washrooms – and considers what UK institutions can learn from their modelling.

School toilets are notorious for being messy, poorly-equipped and potentially intimidating places. In fact, studies show that many pupils avoid them altogether.

According to the Education and Resources for Improving Childhood Continence (ERIC), large numbers of students shun school washrooms because they find them dirty, smelly, lacking in basic provisions and insufficiently private.

In 2004 ERIC launched the Bog Standard campaign to petition for better toilet provision for Britain’s schoolchildren. But despite several years of intensive campaigning there is still no legislation in place demanding minimum standards for school washrooms.

One body in Germany is being more proactive, however. This summer the German Toilet Organisation staged the first ever School Toilet Summit in a bid to come up with new ways of improving that country’s school washrooms. Pupils had been complaining for years about issues such as bad smells, vandalism and sticky floors. Around half of all students claimed their toilets were so disgusting that they avoided using them, while one in four admitted to limiting their daily food and drink intake to avoid having to use the washroom.

As part of the German Toilet Organisation’s school summit, a competition was staged asking students to come up with new ways of improving the school washroom. Around 135 schools from 14 German states took part and their suggestions included the provision of pot plants, disco balls, scent dispensers and mobile phone holders. One entrant suggested teaching primary schoolchildren how to flush while another proposed that plentiful supplies of soap and toilet paper should be provided.

We at Essity carried out our own UK study into school washrooms some years ago and the results mirrored those recorded in Germany. Around five per cent of secondary school students and 44 per cent of primary school pupils said they never used the toilets at school. Nine per cent of respondents 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.

So, what can be done to improve washrooms for students here in the UK?

Soap and paper products are integral to the smooth running of any washroom, but it can be hard to ensure that these supplies are always available in a busy school facility. And these products can both contribute to a messy washroom environment if they are handled or installed inappropriately. Liquid soap residue or dirty soap bars on the basins will be unsightly while loose hand towels on the units are likely to become wet and soiled. Some will end up on the floor, creating litter and causing run-outs.

Conventional toilet rolls can easily be thrown around by unruly pupils or left on the floor where they will become wet, soiled and unusable. This will lead to the supply running out too rapidly and the washrooms becoming even more messy.

These issues can be addressed by providing soap and paper in closed dispensers that protect the product before use and that prevent waste and mess. All Tork Elevation dispensers are lockable to prevent vandalism, pilferage or contamination of the product inside. Tork Sensitive Foam Soap is a particularly good option for schools because it is safe for children, quick to lather and comes in a dispenser that has been purpose-designed to be easy to use by people with low hand strength. Each cartridge caters for up to 1650 visitors compared with around 1000 in most liquid soap systems, which means the supply will last significantly longer.

C-fold hand towels are often supplied in schools because they are a low-cost option. But these can lead to excessive consumption, unnecessary waste and mess – particularly if the towels are supplied in loose bundles piled up on the units. Any pupil picking up a towel will inevitably drip water on to the other towels and make the whole supply unusable. Even when a C-fold dispenser is installed it is all too easy to take out clumps of towels at a time. The unused towels will then be discarded on washroom units or dropped on the floor where they will become damp and soiled.

The Tork PeakServe Continuous Hand Towel is a good alternative in schools because the dispenser caters for more than 1000 pupils between refills which means the supply will not run out, even during the busiest of recess periods. The dispenser protects the towels before use and gives out only one at a time to prevent over-consumption, mess and waste.

The Tork SmartOne toilet tissue system also works well because the dispenser is designed to give out only one sheet at a time. This helps to reduce consumption by up to 40% [1] while also preventing blockages because less paper enters the system at each flush.

Runouts in a school toilet can also be avoided with the aid of technology. For example, Tork Vision Cleaning allows cleaners to check on refill requirements via a smartphone or tablet, allowing them to tell at a glance when a unit is running out of soap and paper. Sensors in the washroom also monitor frequency of use, enabling cleaners to target those facilities that might need extra attention.

There are other steps that can be taken to improve the school washroom for pupils. Clean, fresh paint and good lighting will make the facilities appear more sanitary and welcoming, while air fresheners will help to eliminate bad smells. And children will be encouraged to look after the facilities if they are educated in hand hygiene and its role in controlling infections. The Tork Max Education Toolkit includes workbooks, activity cards and posters to help promote hand washing in schools.

Pot plants in the school washrooms could work well provided the pupils were motivated to water them. Other suggestions made by pupils in the GTO competition included installing whiteboards for adding jokes and incorporating football goal murals in the urinals to encourage a better aim among male students.

But the most important takeaway of the summit was the fact that students seem to have strong opinions about the state of their school washrooms and are keen to improve them. According to the German School Toilet Summit, the state of the toilets rank alongside bullying and poor lunch options among factors that can undermine students’ educational experience. And avoiding using the facilities can lead to health problems including stomach aches, constipation and urinary tract infections.

So perhaps we in the UK could follow the lead of the German Toilet Organisation and ask our own pupils to voice their own school washroom concerns. In this way their complains could be addressed – and the facilities could be improved for everyone.

www.tork.co.uk/Max

[1] Statistics from internal research on 7729 users in Europe. Traditional maxi jumbo dispenser vs. Tork SmartOne Twin Mini dispenser. Reduction accounted in square metre used per visit.

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