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[GreenYes] Re: Earth Policy News - Bottled Water: Pouring Resources Down the Drain



On Fri, 3 Feb 2006, Helen Spiegelman wrote:
consumption/waste, rather than meeting a biological need. In the same vein, how about if North American cities and towns provided public toilets, as they do in European cities? We subsidize consumption and waste, but privatize bodily functions.

As I understand it the ADA (americans with disabilities act) sometimes gets in the way of public toilets such as those self-contained, stand-alone,
self-cleaning, possibly pay, toilets that can be set up and look kind of like little news kiosks.

ADA basically says things to the effect of all new structures need to be ADA compliant, right? So the problem arises when one wants to put a non-wheelchair accessible unit. You can the non-wheelchair ones in more places because they're smaller, lets say one block corner you would have two or more units.. and at the next corner, you would have one wheelchair accessible one.

I think they looked at these in Philadelphia and had that ADA problem.

In addition, in some places, there are problems with these and the homeless potentially using them for shelter. Of course one might argue about what the problem is in that case, but the issue still breaks down to a facility not being able to be used, breaking down, or otherwise being vandalized for one reason or another.

Even if you weren't going with one of these self-cleaning units.. you would then need to come up with a group of people to regularly clean and restock them. Litter bins require very little maintenance.

--
MS



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