Someone Has to Clean All The Porta Potties. How Does It Happen?

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Just about everyone has at least seen a portable toilet, or porta potty, at least once in their lives. We all understand that once they get used they have to get cleaned, but how does that work? Well, to answer that question, first let’s look at how they actually work.

How Do Portable Toilets Work?

A typical portable toilet includes a “toilet” and some also include urinals for men to use. Both of these options direct the flow of urine and poop into a chamber below the porta potty. This is where you often see that “blue stuff”. 

Portable toilets work by holding all of this waste (as well as a mixture of fresh water, blue dye, fragrance, surfactants, biocides and enzymes) until it is ready to be emptied and serviced. How do they get serviced? Excellent question. Let’s take a look.

Servicing Porta Potties

In the business of portable toilets, one of the least fashionable jobs is probably when it comes time to service or clean out the porta potty. It’s definitely a dirty job, but someone has to do it! Luckily, here at AYS, and across the country, there are plenty of people willing and able to take care of that for you, the customer. But for those of you that are interested in more about what we do and how, let’s take a look.

Maintenance

When you order portable toilets for your event or construction site, you’ll discuss the scheduled maintenance to be sure it falls in line with what is needed for you. Depending on the size of your event or site, maintenance might be needed more often, so this is discussed in advance to be sure everyone knows what to expect. Our default maintenance schedule is once per week. 

Cleaning

Are men’s or women’s bathrooms dirtier? Do you have a guess? Well you might be surprised to learn women’s toilets are dirtier than mens! When it comes to the germs in public bathrooms, that is, according to a study done by the University of Arizona. 

But, before you start celebrating anything, you should know they also found that men are messier. Men’s bathrooms typically have more paper towels or toilet paper strewn about, and are generally less clean, while women’s restrooms are typically cleaner and more organized. 

For portable toilets, cleaning includes using high pressure spray hoses to clean away bugs, dirt, sand, and more from the inside of the stall, “clearing” the holding tank of human waste, and then moving onto sanitizing.

Sanitizing

Sanitizing is done after cleaning stalls to ensure that any lingering bacteria can’t harm anyone. The sanitizer is sprayed over the entire potty to kill germs on all of its surfaces.

Storing/Resupplying

After being cleaned and sanitized, the portable toilet will either get picked up for storage or will get restocked with toilet paper, hand sanitizer, “blue stuff”, etc. for continued use.

(To learn more about how we help large events take care of their portable restroom needs, read this article: “Logistics of Large Events and Portable Toilets”.)

Regular Cleaning is a Must

If you’ve never seen an overflowing porta potty, count yourself lucky! It is a disaster for everyone involved. Luckily, regular cleaning and clearing of the holding tank will keep this from ever becoming a nightmare for you! 

By having your units cleared, cleaned, and sanitized regularly you are also keeping your guests and customers safe from bacteria and generally unpleasant odors or experiences which could keep your event from being a highlight in their mind.

We schedule our maintenance with you to try and keep it easy on everyone involved. Your customers get clean bathrooms, you get happy customers, and we have happy clients. It’s a win-win-win!

Are you thinking about hiring a portable toilet specialist like AYS? Get your free quote today by visiting our quote page or call us at 918-272-0568. We’ll happily help you figure out the right number of units you’ll need for your next party, gathering, event, or construction project and answer any questions you may have.

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