Small town business owners

If you are hiring portable toilets for a construction site or for any other type of business, you may have a few employees who balk at using these types of toilets. Fortunately, it is easy to dispel the fears and worries. You just need the right info and the right supplies. Here are some tips on quelling the worries of people reluctant to use portaloos.

1. Educate your employees to dispel common myths

Most of the stories about catching STDs or diseases from portable toilets are urban lore. When it comes to sexually transmitted diseases in particular, people are extremely unlikely to catch them from toilet seats. The germs or bacteria associated with most STDs cannot live for long outside of a warm body, meaning they quickly perish on a cold portaloo seat between visitors.

Even if a bit of STD bacteria were to survive on the seat, it is unlikely to affect another person. These opportunistic bacteria take advantage of the fact that during intercourse, friction damages the integrity of the top layer of skin, making it more penetrable to bacteria. Educate your employees on these facts so they are less prone to worrying about mythical risks.

2. Advise people not to use the portaloo with open cuts

As indicated above, there can be a very small risk of contracting illnesses if you use a portaloo with open cuts. Advise your employees not to use the portaloo with broken skin or open cuts. If necessary, give these people the option to drive to a toilet in another location, or encourage them to squat or hover above the seat.

3.  Set up a handwashing station

Although most bacteria cannot live on a toilet seat, there are a few types of hardy bacteria that can survive on cold surfaces. Germs such as eColi and rotavirus, for example, can live in fecal matter on a toilet seat.

If someone touches the infected fecal matter with their hands, they can easily touch their mouths, eyes or other mucous glands and contract the virus themselves.

The most effective way to prevent the spread of these viruses is through hand washing. To protect your employees from the rare but infectious germs that may occasionally live on a portaloo seat, install a handwashing station with antibacterial soap.

If you can't put up an entire handwashing station, choose portable toilets with hand sanitiser dispensers in them.

4. Offer antibacterial wipes for the toilet seat

Many people think covering a toilet seat with a paper cover can prevent the spread of germs, but you often end up touching the sides of the toilet while putting the piece of paper in place.

To provide true protection from the extremely low number of germs that may live on a portaloo seat, offer your employees antibacterial toilet wipes. Anyone who is worried about germs can just grab one of these wipes and clean off the seat before sitting down.

5. Set up a regular cleaning schedule

Hopefully with a bit of education on just how unlikely it is to contract any diseases through a portable toilet, your employees will be less hesitant to use it. However, you should also plan to mitigate the transfer of any disease with regular cleanings. As an added bonus, when your employees see that you are cleaning the toilet regularly, they will feel more comfortable.

You have two options with cleaning. You can set up a rotating schedule that directs you or some of your employees to clean the portaloo. That option works if you are only hiring the portaloo for a relatively short time and don't want to pay for cleaning.

Your other option is to have the portable toilet hire company professionally cleaned. In most cases, you can hire someone from the portable toilet company to service your toilet, remove the waste and clean it on a regular basis.