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PORTABLE RESTROOM EQUIPMENT
MAINTENANCE TIPS
Diligently maintaining portable toilets with thorough cleaning processes along with using today’s industrial-grade odor neutralizing agents can help keep portable restrooms clean and smelling fresh. But, keeping a portable restroom clean can be particularly challenging in the case of long-term rentals and multi-day events where usage is very frequent. Below are some helpful tips and general industry information that ALW has received from successful toilet rental services business operators on maintaining portable restrooms under even the most difficult circumstances. FACTORS AFFECTING PORTABLE TOILET MAINTENANCE QUALITY
maintained facilities have attracted flies and other disease-
It’s not a secret that populations of germs and pathogens
pathogens are on walls, in sinks, on countertops, on toilet
flourish on interior walls of portable restrooms and any
surfaces, in drains, on floors, on paper towel dispensers,
surfaces on the inside and outside of the unit that is touched
and on door handles in public restrooms, and cleaning and
by numerous people. The entire interior of the unit and the
maintenance practices were inadequate.
exterior door and handle must be frequently and thoroughly washed and scrubbed, to keep contaminants that present
SOLUTIONS IN TODAY’S PORTABLE TOILET DESIGNS AND CLEANING PRODUCTS AND PROCESSES
health risks under control.
Over the past decade and a half since that Cornell study,
A Cornell University study of portable toilets (2006) found
transmitting insects and vermin, and where germs and
portable toilet rental business owners have become much
that even public facilities that appear to be a clean present
more informed about the importance of improving on
very high potential for transmission of pathogens. This is
the methods of the past. Today’s environmentally-friendly
primarily because of the ways the facilities are typically
liquid toilet cleaning solutions are highly effective in killing
used, of course, with large numbers of people using the
pathogens. The former standard cleaning agents for portable
same facilities for eliminating bodily fluids and handling the
toilet maintenance involved formaldehyde, which has
same fixtures and supplies, and other surfaces. The risk of
since become well recognized as a carcinogenic, and an
contamination and potential ill health effects is especially
environmentally unsustainable material for the purpose.
high in such environments. The research study further indicated that the risk is
Modern “greener” alternatives in portable toilet cleaning chemicals no longer obliterate all microbial life forms in the
significantly increased in facilities with poor ventilation and
toilet units. Instead, the environmentally sound approach
insufficient cleaning and maintenance. The hazards were
now introduces enzymes and certain microbes that consume
found to be naturally even more extreme where poorly
the bacteria that generate bad odors.
2 0 A MERIC AN L IQUID WA S T E F EBR UA RY 2021
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