Public Toilets
The National Key Scheme (NKS) offers independent access to disabled people to around 7,000 locked public toilets aronud the UK. RADAR would like all providers of accessible toilets to keep their toilets unlocked if at all possible. The NKS is suggested for use only if the provider concerned has to keep the toilets locked to stop vandalism and misuse
SitOrSquat.com is a site is dedicated to telling you where the closest place to relieve yourself is and whether or not that place is worth even sitting or squatting (or standing) at.  We all find ourselves needing a public restroom every once in a while, whether it's walking down a city block or driving on a highway with a few whining kids in the backseat. This application is designed to be viewed either on your computer or your mobile device.* It functions worldwide as it is based on Google Maps.
Toilet Search Engines
 The Bathroom Diaries® rates 12000+ public bathrooms in more than 100 countries, providing a wealth of information to both travelers and urban dwellers. You can add to the list.
Diaroogle.com helps you find quality public toilets from your mobile phone and the internet in three major cities ... New York City, San Francisco, and London. Each location of a public toilet is marked on a Google Map of the city.  You can search their database by address, cross street, zip, neighborhood, landmark or park.
You can submit a public toilet that you have used and approve. You will be asked is this toilet 100% Girl Approved – Would you recommended this bathroom to your mother? Is this toilet good for parents with little kids – Diaper changing station / kid friendly / supports pair-pooping or team-peeing? Is this toilet Handicapped Accessible – and can I bring my wheelchair? Toilets are rated for privacy, cleanliness and accessibility. The hours that the toilet is open to the public are also listed.
 Currently there are twenty five (25) wheelchair accessible automatically self-cleaning public toilets installed throughout the City. The toilets cost 25 cents to use. Anyone that cannot afford the 25 cent entry fee, can obtain free tokens at most non-profit organizations in the city. Check out the map.
Presidential Inauguration 2009
With less than 100 permanent restrooms located in museums that border the Mall 5,000 portable toilets were installed along the parade route and around the National Mall for the public (taxpayers), more than double the 2,200 provided in 2005. The National Park Service recommends one toilet for every three hundred people expected to attend the inauguration. While Washington's VIPs — Senators, Congressmen, and the President — will enjoy the VIPs of all port-a-potties. A portable trailer, complete with sinks, heating, and hardwood floors.
Anticipating a pressing need, Jennifer Lynn has written "Where To Pee in DC: The Unofficial Guide for the 2009 Inauguration". This is a digital booklet you can print out at home that's on sale via eBay for just $3.75.
When you gotta go, you want to know!
Omniglot
is a guide to the writing systems and languages of the world. This very useful site
gives the translation for "Where's the toilet" in dozens of different languages from
Afrikaans (Waar is die toilet? / Waa issie toilet?) to
Zulu ( Likuphi ikamelo lokugezela? Likuphi itholethe?).
Simon Ager, the webmaster, is originally from Lancashire, England.
He currently lives in Bangor, Wales studying for an
MA in Linguistics at Bangor University. His native language is English, and he studied French and German
at secondary school, Chinese and Japanese at university, and taught himself quite a few other languages.
The foreign language he speaks the best is Mandarin Chinese, followed by Welsh, Irish, French, German, Spanish
and Japanese (more or less in that order). Omniglot shows you how to ask the whereabouts of the toilet in many different languages.
It also shows some of the emphasisms and alternative names for the toilet.
By Ian Simpson VENICE, Italy - Venice wants to make itself an easier place to go, so it is launching an online service that lets visitors pay for access to public toilets with a mouse click.
Rest of the story ...
Five $1,000,000 toilets
at auction for a mere $89,000
Seattle's high-tech public toilets cost the city $1 million apiece in 2004. In July 2008, the toilets went up for sale on eBay, with a starting bid -- set by the city -- of $89,000.
Problems surrounding drug use and prostitution inside the facilities caused the city to abandon their use. Seattle officials say the project failed because the toilets, were placed in neighborhoods that already had many drug users and transients.
In addition, a strict advertising law in Seattle barred officials from any advertising arrangement with an outdoor advertising company to operate and maintain them for the municipality in exchange for a right to place ads on public property. Revenue from the advertisers flows to both the company and the city; Seattle had to pick up the entire $5 million cost.
Calgary, Canada has already had a positive experience with a similiar public toilet and is considering the purchase of the five Seattle rejects. Calgary claims they did not experience the same problems; use of their single pilot toilet ... shiny, silver, self-cleaning, heated and mirrored, with gentle music playing from overhead -- has tripled since its February installation. It's hard to pass up such a bargain.
Lipstick in School (Priceless!)
According to a news report, a certain private school in Washington was recently faced with a unique problem. A number of 12-year-old girls were beginning to use lipstick and would put it on in the bathroom. That was fine but after they put on their lipstick, they would press their lips to the mirror leaving dozens of little lip prints.
Every night the maintenance man would remove them, and the next day the girls would put them back.
Finally the principal decided that something had to be done. She called all the girls to the bathroom and met them there with the maintenance man. She explained that all these lip prints were causing a major problem for the custodian who had to clean the mirrors every night (you can just imagine the yawns from the little princesses).
To demonstrate how difficult it had been to clean the mirrors, she asked the maintenance man to show the girls how much effort was required.
He took out a long-handled squeegee, dipped it in the toilet, and cleaned the mirror with it.
Since then, there have been no lip prints on the mirror.
There are teachers. and then there are educators.
More RESTROOMS, Please !!!
National Mall & Memorial Parks hosted a public symposium on the National Mall Plan on November 15, 2006. The symposium gave the general public an opportunity to review documents, interact with park staff and managers and to hear speakers talking on the subject. Restrooms or lack thereof was the No.1 complaint. Designed 100 years ago and last renovated about 30 years ago, the Mall is in sad shape. Covering 600 acres that attracts 25,000,000 visitors a year, there are less than 100 restrooms and most of them are located in museums that border the Mall and are closed around 5:00pm.
The National Park Service welcomes your comments on this project.
Your comments must be submitted or postmarked by midnight Mountain Time on ' 12/29/2006 by 11:59 PM.
The government of Australia takes their public toilets seriously; they have published The National Public Toilet Map (the Map) showing the location of more than 14,000 public and private public toilet facilities across Australia. Details of toilet facilities can also be found along major travel routes and for shorter journeys as well. Useful information is provided about each toilet, such as location, opening hours, availability of baby change rooms, accessibility for people with disabilities and the details of other nearby toilets. The development of the Map and the Web site is funded by the Australian Government through the Department of Health and Ageing as part of the National Continence Management Strategy. 
Registered users can download toilets as waypoints to their GPS device and save the toilets that you would like to download. They are currently working with 26 State Government agencies from across Australia who provide more than 1000 toilet facilities to update their details on the site. They have also contacted more than 1,300 shopping centres across Australia to ask them to participate in the project, which will significantly boost the number of toilets available on the site. The National Public Toilet Map Newsletter is a quarterly email update on the project, including a summary of new toilets added in the previous quarter.
In 1999 the British Toilet Association was born.
Through it's campaign activities the Association hopes to influence standards.
To focus attention on issues relating to the provision of public or ‘away from home’ toilets
To campaign for appropriate legislation relating to the provision of public toilets by Local Authorities
To campaign for high standards of public or ‘away from home’ toilets in all areas, including municipal locations, health, education, transport, leisure, hospitality and retail establishments
To campaign for the provision of an adequate number of facilities for women, in relation to the number of facilities provided for men.
To campaign for adequate facilities for specialist user groups, such as wheelchair users, the elderly, babies and young children and people with medical conditions
To campaign for the provision of secure, fully attended public toilet facilities, with extended opening hours.
To campaign for the eradication of all types of social misuse and vandalism in public toilets
To provide a forum for public toilet providers, contractors, suppliers and users to share concerns and ideas and communicate best practices
To provide consultancy and information services to Association members on a range of relevant subjects
To establish links with similar Toilet Associations in other countries
 On Feb. 1, 2006 Paris planned to begin converting its more than 200 self-sanitizing public toilets to work for free. They currently cost 40 euro cents (about 50 cents).
In a plan worked out with Decaux, the company that manages the self-sanitizing toilets, the city government will pay 17 euro cents (20 cents) in operating costs for every visitor above the 2.4 million tallied in 2005. Paris expects to recuperate most of the money spent on the toilets, called "sanisettes," by saving on street cleaning.
The sanisettes come in several styles, but all have the same basic design: You press a button (or, in some cases, insert a coin) to open the door, and when you step inside, a sensor in the floor causes the door to close and lock. You do your business, then open the door and exit. The door closes again, the toilet is automatically cleaned and disinfected by a motorized mechanism, and a green light signals that the lavatory is ready for the next user.
For more details and directions ...> .
There are two types of toilets in Japan: "Japanese style" toilets and "Western style" toilets. Public washrooms are usually equipped with Japanese style toilets, but the number of public washrooms with Western style toilets has been increasing especially in tourist areas. Public washrooms with both, Japanese and Western style toilets, are also commonly found. Because toilet paper is sometimes not provided in public washrooms, it is recommended to always carry a small package of tissues with you. Similarly, because paper towels or dryers are not always provided to dry your hands, it is recommended to carry a handkerchief.
Tourists to New York City suffer from the lack of public toilets, and New Yorkers do as well. For 15 years, the NYC Council and mayor have made proposals and counterproposals. But as yet, only a handful of public toilets, operated by JCDecaux, have been built, due to apparently endless complications.
The good news? In September 2005 a deal was finally reached, to install 20 public toilets by the year 2007. Lawsuits are expected (yet again) over the deal; it is probably best to follow the strategies found at Public Toilet New York City.com for the time being. In the meantime, there is a list of public toilets in NYC at
Clean Bathrooms in New York City
Do you think that toiletology as a science will find its place in society? It is hard to say. I think that it might be useful for everyone, just for a broader outlook. No one has withdrawn the taboo from the toilet issue, and a certain moral ban is inside of every human being. Some people think that this subject is way too indelicate and disgraceful. Others feel that the taboo makes them want to talk about it, whether in the form of a joke or a real-life story. Yet, this is a rather serious subject. Konchalovsky was right when he said that we have to set up a Party of Clean Public Toilets. We will not be able to have democracy as long as we have dirty public toilets. An interview with Alexander Lipkov by German Vlasov for Pravda.Ru.
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