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Comment by schlowmo | Hacker News Reader

> "[...] whose duty is it to volunteer to clean it up?"

While this isn't applicable in all areas, a rule of thumb could be "those who making money with the people which have to use toilets".

Anecdotal example: I'm living in an amusement district of a big German City. There are very few public toilets and most of the few are paid ones. So every weekend the whole district is smelling like a big bowl of piss, except in winter when the frozen pee of multiple weekends accumulate until there is the big pee-melt.

Why not making all those bars, clubs and liqor stores pay for the maintanance of free public toilets?

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Or better yet, why not enact laws that say bars, clubs, gas stations, liquor stores, restaurants and cafés have to have free toilets? Give them some compensation, e.g. government pays for putting in or upgrading the bathroom and the restaurant just has to keep it clean and open. It solves most of the problems with public toilets out on the street, such as them being nasty and occupied by homeless people, because the owner of the establishment wants to keep it nice and clean.

Don't they have to?

In the US, there's a law that says all places that serve food and aren't on a public street (e.g. a food truck), have to have a public toilet.

At least in my jurisdiction, gas station don't have public toilets because they want to---they have it because since they serve reheated hot dogs, they are required to have a toilet.

in germany you're required to have a toiled as well, but it doesnt have to be truly public. they're almost always limited to customers.

Same thing in Russia. It doesn't always work well, but in most cases it does. As for mass public events - usually there are free street portable toilets provided as well. In most office buildings there are free toilets as well, and in all shopping malls, of course. Cinemas, theatres, medical institutions... All of those are publicly accessible without any questions asked.

To be honest, I can name only 2 places where the toilets are paid in Russia - train and some bus stations and there are paid toilets near metro stations in Moscow.

Exactly that is being tried... somewhere in Europe right now. Saw the story on HN last year, and it seemed be cost effective.

I'm reminded of this the "urine reflecting wall paint" they want to apply in Hamburg. I highly doubt it'll solve anything: at the end of the day the streets will still reek of piss. (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/27/walls-that-pee...)

Does anyone know what public toilets cost (in construction and maintenance)?

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