The future of public toilets - inclusive and sustainable

The image shows a weathered wooden hut with a sign on the door that reads ‘Compost Toilet’. We can see water, perhaps the sea, behind the hut. The image was taken on a Scottish Island.

Public toilet provision is a public health issue and a central part of our conversations about designing better journeys.

As the Guardian recently reported 'Britain has lost an estimated 50% of its public toilets in the past 10 years. This is a problem for everyone, and for some it is so acute that they are either dehydrating before going out or not leaving home at all' .

We’ve known that this is a problem for a long time and many continue to campaign for better design, more options and more provision. But there’s something else we need to think about - designing for the climate. Using lower carbon energy sources, reducing water usage, building with new materials … every aspect of our environment will need to be redesigned in the coming years to reduce our impact on the planet. Including toilets. Every new building, every refurbishment, every redesign that includes a public toilet will (hopefully) be designed to be more sustainable.

And when we redesign for the planet we’ll need to ensure that they’re much more inclusive too.

This is what our Inclusive Low Carbon Journey work aims to do. Working with people who are disabled and disadvantaged by our transport services, we’re learning about plans and designs for a more sustainable future and focusing our expertise and experience to imagine how those designs could be more inclusive. We’re turning that imagination into stories.

In our first workshop we imagined a future inclusive, sustainable toilet and wondered if our digital devices would alert those movement-sensors to leave the lights on a little longer. It’s great that the lights turn off and save energy when we’re not in there, but sometimes…

We also hoped that the toilet was free to use and open 24 hours.

Last Thursday, our Future Journeys group hosted a discussion about the future of public toilets, listening to a couple of presentations and then using our imagination to come up with some ideas for a mobile, accessible toilet of the future.

Our friends at Pamis told us about the Changing Places Toilets campaign and discussed the different options for their design. We heard about the Pamiloo (a version of the Mobiloo) a mobile changing places toilet. And our guests from the Public Toilet Research Unit at the Royal College of Art shared their work, including the Great British Toilet Map and the amazing Tinkle - a collection of resources, articles, events and networks of people working towards better public toilets. There’s a lot out there - take a look at Network Rail’s design guidance for Public Toilets In Managed Stations for example and the Highlands Comfort Scheme which provides grants to pubs, restaurants, hotels and village halls to allow public use of their toilets, expanding the range of options across the region.

We were reminded that getting design right, such as colour contrast, the colour of the lighting and mirror placement, is really important to be inclusive. Back in 2019 many of us were involved in A Public Inconvenience, a project looking at the challenges of finding an appropriate toilet on a journey - our report came up with a lot of recommendations. .

We know what we need to do to start creating more inclusive toilets.

What we need to do now is consider inclusion and sustainability together. So, towards the end of our gathering we set ourselves a challenge - imagine a mobile, accessible toilet that has a lower impact on the planet. We heard some great ideas - use solar panels to power the hoist and rain water to flush. Use low energy bulbs and offer a choice of lighting colours. Include something to show how long the toilet will be occupied. Campaign for the electric charging point infrastructure to enable this vehicle (whatever type it might be) to use it. But we had many questions too - what about lower energy heating? Could we call the toilet to us, Uber-style?

We’re using these ideas and insights to develop our Inclusive Low Carbon Journey story - a vision for a more inclusive journey of the near future that impacts less on the environment.

We’ll be holding more discussions to learn about other plans for a low carbon future. Get in touch if you’d like to take part.