A Literature Review: Public Toilet

Literature Review

This paper will review the related literature conducted on the area of study. By embarking on such pursuit, the research may be guided accordingly by firstly discovering where the research is coming from, what and how much have been studied regarding the topic and what it is yet to tackle. Besides providing background to the study, this chapter will provide the necessary backbone and support in order for the research to stand credible.

By surveying the past publications and researches related to the study, a historical perspective may take place. The researcher will also gain an idea on how such venture has been explored in the past. In this manner, this study may be able to reflect, compare itself, learn from setbacks and produce a stronger and more efficient study. The Literature Review will also provide the research a rich source of data, both new and old, that will enhance and enrich the study (and the direction it will plan to undertake) even the more.

Public Toilets – an Overview

In the recent years, the issue of public toilets has evolved from being a less important project to one of the society’s widespread and contemporary area of awareness and discussion. According to Wikipedia (2005b), public toilet is also known as washroom, toilet room, or restroom. This terminology differs in term of its denotative meaning. For instance, washroom denotatively refers to a public, commercial, or industrial personal hygiene facility designed for high throughput (Wikipedia, 2005b). Every washroom is expected to have the following fixtures: toilets, urinals, hand wash faucets, soap dispensers, hand dryers or paper towel dispensers, and sometimes showers with the presence of soap, shampoo, or similar dispensers for highly industrialized establishments. However, the word toilet in British and Commonwealth usage refer to the fixture itself or the room containing it (Wikipedia, 2005a). Public toilets are a necessity, but recently, they have been plagued with problems, and yet these problems have not been solved. People are beginning to wonder whether public toilets are still necessary. Investigating the factors that contribute to the reduction of public toilet availability and the responses those responsible have on the issues surrounding public toilets may help to find solutions for these problems.

Public toilets are supposed to be a product of modernization. Everywhere in the world, public restrooms in parks or porta-potties are a fixture. However, like all modern advances, public toilets bring with them their own set of problems. They are dirty, dangerous, not very well maintained, and worse its absence or scarcity when you need them.

According to little known literature of public toilets, these humble facilities were originally created not for convenience to a person who is far from home and is hit by the urge. Public toilets were created for people without toilets in the comforts of their homes. There are cases of people that neglect the presence of toilets because in the olden age, toilets were a foreign concept. People defecated outside, or inside their houses and then covered it with earth. The first public toilets were said to be in Harappa, India as early as 2500 BCE (Wikipedia, 2005a). It is characterized as water borne and located in every house and were linked with drains covered with burnt clay bricks. There were also toilets in ancient Egupt and China. Historically, toilets in the Roman civilization were sometimes part of public bath houses in which men and women shared the company of each other. In 1596, Sir John Harington invented the flush toilet that brought developments in the Victorian era and introduced the widely usage of such (Wikipedia, 2005a). Now, they were reputed to be quite advanced but this system eventually vanish the traditional means and paves its way for more ultramodern facilities. Toilets back in the day were filthy. As compared to the contemporary period of living now, people have it easy and convenient to use. However, it seems that the public toilet has come under fire once again with the presence of various problems affecting its existence.

Public Toilets: Against All Odds

According to an article written by Rebecca Webber for the Gotham Gazzette in July 15, 2001, even big cities like New York suffered from a lack of proper public toilets. Public toilets are not cleaned properly, and were obviously neglected. When they fell into disrepair, they were just ignored. Pay to use public toilets were not welcomed because there were plenty of people who could not use them, such as homeless people, for instance. Other times, people themselves would oppose the building of public toilets in residential areas for fear that they might attract deviants. These deviants include drug addicts and child molesters who are known to haunt public toilets. Further, the issue of gay men and women sex in public toilets remains unresolved up to the present. The government has not done much to help. However, other organizations have stepped up to the plate. Automatic public toilets have been installed, and there are websites that can pinpoint the location of the nearest public restroom. Cities in the United States (for instance) are now beginning to plan for the installation of public toilets (Webber, 2001).

European journalist Peter Young described the disadvantages of the absence of public toilets with easy access in his article Public Toilets Down the Pan!. Public toilets were removed from duty due to a revamping scheme in Newcastle (Young, 2005, p.18). For this reason, majority of the number of people have resorted to urinating on the streets or alleys. This led to people’s detention and up to the extent of taking to court. But for the most part, the presence of imprisonment and even arrests did not really stop the habit of urinating just about everywhere. Not only does it result in bad odors in streets but it also presents an obvious health and environmental hazards. Although public toilets may not be the most sanitary places in a given society, at the very least, the health dangers can be controlled.

Furthermore, public toilets are oftentimes perceived as venue for antisocial and deviancy behaviors. Among these are graffiti, furtive sexual relations, social bonding, sex or caste-based cleaning roles and unusual uses. Graffiti in public toilets are characterized with transgressive, gossipy, or lowbrow humorous nature and some examples are taken from the ruins of Pompeii (Wikipedia, 2005a). Below is a couple of well-known contemporary specimen:

He who writes on bathroom walls

Rolls his shit in little balls

And he who reads these words of wit

Eats those little balls of shit!

Here I sit

Broken-hearted

Came to shit

But only farted

Then one day I took a chance

Tried to fart and shit my pants.

Similarly, another abuse on public toilets is furtive sexual relations. These include assignations as well as the acts themselves that provides convenience to toilet “affairs” held inside regardless of sanitary or romantic venue. It has been reported that for the past years, gay men used the facility to engage in “cruising” or anonymous sexual contact. In United Kingdom, punishment for sexual activity in a public lavatory stated in Sexual Offences Act of 2003 include summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 6 months or a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale or both (Office of Public Sector Information Website, 2003). Additionally, public toilets provide an imperative area for male and female collective bonding. With the gullibility of their age, males as well as females use the venue for smoking, gambling, dealing drugs and other activities beyond the social norms (Wikipedia, 2005a).

Meanwhile, another article the author of this research has gleaned was one written by Anna Morrell entitled Discovering the Bottom Line about Public Toilets Today. In this article, the Morrell described the usual state of public toilets, and how, with simple changes that can involve a supply of effective toilet paper, and properly functioning faucets for the washing of hands, could present a welcome improvement in the state of most public toilets (Morrell, 2004, p.13).

These articles are only a representation of the current literature haunting public toilets. Not only are they in a dismaying state of neglect and disrepair, they are also thought of as a haven for child molesters and drug traffickers. They have poor security, which accounts for the public toilet’s great attraction for social deviants. A public toilet’s usual problem of bad maintenance can be blamed on lack of funding. The government doesn’t seem too interested in fixing public toilets.

Public Toilets and Environmental Health: the Contemporary Plague

With the advent of technological advances and modernity, people are used to “instant” way of life. In line with the development on all sorts of facilities like public toilets, there are some aspects neglected by people. Among these most important perspectives is the environment. As it seems, concern for the environment comes last for humans. In 1985, Vieira suggested that, only recently have humans shown much concern for the quality of their environment. For thousands of years they have been quite happy to use natural resources without any thought for the effect they were having upon their world. Although she sort of redeemed humanity, she also observed that as far as individuals are concerned, it has been observed that when their basic needs are satisfied, the quality of the environment is also included among their concerns. Going further, the environmental movement has been associated with the middle class, which gets the most from governmental measures in favor of cleaning and preserving the environment. (Vieira, 1985, p.3) Realistically, the environment serves as the absorber of all the dirt, pollutants, toxins, and other derogatory substances of nature. Public toilets are identified to be one of the major contributory aspects of environmental issues. Because in the process, toilets are among the most common sources of these substances aside from the industrial sources of waste. Now, with the facts presented in the aforementioned discussion, the researcher wanted to investigate further on the need of people to have public toilets that are clean, healthy, and environment friendly.

Conclusion

The author would like to restate the purpose of this research proposal. It is intended to provide information on the common problems that people are facing with regards to public toilets. It is also intended to answer the question of whether or not a public toilet is still necessary. The question can be answered by the people who use public toilets and from the data gathered by the researcher. Perhaps, the opinions given by the ordinary constituents, their concerns and their ideas will be able to help in resolving the problems of public toilets. After all, they are the ones who use it, so they should have a better idea than anyone else on just what the public needs from their public toilets. As for the question of whether or not public toilets are still necessary, the author would like to venture an untested answer: Yes, public toilets are still needed. They provide an answer to bodily needs that may come at inconvenient times with sanitary solutions. Public toilets are still in demand among people everywhere, but along with their demands is their desire for cleaner, better maintained, safer, healthier and environment friendly public toilets.

References

Lister, S. (2005, January 21). Public Toilets to Re-open for Open. Daily Post, p2.

Morgan, A. (2004, September 15). Public Toilet’s Lighting has Wrong Effect.

Coventry Evening Telegraph, p. 11.

Morrell, A. (2004, September 22). Discovering the Bottom Line about Public

Toilets Today. Western Mail, p.13.

Rutherford, E. (2005, December 13). Germ-wary Pol Pushes for Public Toilet

Seat Covers. Boston Herald, no page.

Vieira, A.D. S. (1985) Environmental Information in Developing Nations: Politics and Policies. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

Webber, R. (2001, July 15). Public Toilets. Gotham Gazette. Retrieved

December 13, 2005 from www.gothamgazette.com.

Young, P. (2005, September 28). Public Toilets Down the Pan!. Evening

Chronicle, p.18.

Surveys:

Taylor, B. (2004). Have Your Say About Public Toilets in Haringey. Haringey

Council. Available online at www.haringey.gov.uk.

British Toilet Association (1999). Best Value Consultation Survey Resident

Questionnaire.

Riley, S. (2005). Investigation into Public Toilets in London. London Assembly:

London. Available online at www.london.gov.uk.

Online Sources:

Jahrling, P. (2002, December 1) Using Less, Staying Clean. Retrieved December

22, 2005 from http://asumag.com/Washrooms/university_using_less_staying/.

Office of Public Sector Information Website (2003). Sexual Offences Act 2003.

Retrieved December 22, 2005 from http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2003/30042--b.htm.

Pathak, B. (1995). History of Public Toilets. Retrieved December 22, 2005 from

www.plumbingworld.com

Toilet. (2005, December 19). Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved

December 22, 2005 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet.

Washroom. (2005, December 19). Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved

December 22, 2005 from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Washroom&oldid=31938069.