Nearly 20 000 people have made use of the extra public toilets installed in mid-May in the Cape Town CBD by the Cape Town Central City Improvement District (CCID) in an effort to meet the need for safe, clean public ablution facilities in town.
The four-month pilot project includes four mobile toilets: two units were installed on the corner of Adderley and Darling streets at the start of the project, followed shortly thereafter by two units in Longmarket Street in the East City. The serviced toilets, whch are cleaned and sanitised after each use, are free to all members of the public. They are open seven days a week, from Monday to Sunday, from 07h00 to 23h00.
Says CCID CEO Tasso Evangelinos: “Public toilets in the Cape Town CBD are few and far between, and the well-known ones, including those on Greenmarket and Thibault squares and the Grand Parade, are only open during normal working hours. While some visitors can get relief in bars and restaurants, other people don’t have access to these venues, including the CBD’s homeless community.
“The main aim of the project was to alleviate the chronic shortage of ablution facilities in downtown Cape Town and to also provide serviced facilities that are clean, safe to use, and open day and night.”
Evangelinos says the pilot will give the CCID the opportunity to understand the costs and challenges with operating a public ablution facility in a busy city centre with heavy foot traffic. No decision has been made to extend the pilot at this point once it concludes.
Since their installation, the toilets have been used by nearly 20 000 people: from 30 May 2022 to 29 August 2022, 19 996 visitors to the CBD used the facilities: 13 187 people have used the Adderley Street toilets while 6 809 have used those in the East City.
Kally Benito, manager of the CCID’s Urban Management department, says public safety is paramount and both sites are monitored daily by Public Safety Officers of the CCID’s Safety & Security department.
The project is also a job-creating opportunity, says Benito, and has provided work for eight people, on average, per site. She says: “The Public Toilet Pilot Project ties in with the CCID’s ongoing social projects and efforts with its NGO partners to find sustainable and creative solutions to address the plight of the homeless in the CBD. On this project we are collaborating with two of our NGO partners – Khulisa Social Solutions and Straatwerk – that are providing trained workers who earn a stipend to manage the toilets, which are cleaned and sanitised every time they are used.
“Since the launch of the project, we have had a very positive response from members of the public, and we hope that by adding to the existing infrastructure in town, the resources used by our Urban Management department to clean unsightly hot-spot areas in town can be redirected to other projects.”
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Issued by Sharon Sorour-Morris, Communications manager of the Cape Town Central City Improvement District (CCID), 082 216 0835; sharon@capetownccid.org