SCMP reports that the Hong Kong Toilet Association is combating long waiting times for women’s toilets with the introduction of female urinals.
The industry group claims that these facilities would reduce peeing time to just 90 seconds, compared to the usual time of 2-3 minutes. This would then reduce the queuing times for women’s toilets.
Furthermore, the group added urinals take up half the space of a regular cubicle.
The facilities would include disposable paper urine funnels to help with aiming and shelves for women to hang their bags.
“It is much more feasible to install additional female urinals than to build new cubicles, especially in smaller and older public toilets,” said the group’s vice-president Henry Hung Chi Kuen.
The proposal from the Hong Kong Toilet Association comes in response to the Audit Commissions report stating that the city has failed to meet the government’s toilet guidelines.
The Hong Kong government currently states that there should be two public female toilet compartments for every male one. Released a couple of weeks ago, the Audit Commission’s report stated the city has failed to implement this guideline with a current ratio of just 1:3.
Earlier this year Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po had announced that the city would spend HK$600 million to revamp 240 public toilets over five years. To date, only 48 public toilets have been renovated.
“At this rate, it would take 16 years to upgrade all of the toilets in the city. I hope we can speed up the process for all public toilets to a timeline of five years,” Hung said.
As bizarre as the idea may seem, German and France have introduced similar facilities at music festivals in the form of temporary lavatories.
However, the Hong Kong Toilet Association has struggled to find organisations who are willing to conduct initial tests of the proposed facilities in Hong Kong.
