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Poor toilet hygiene

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stretch3144
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Poor toilet hygiene

Post by stretch3144 »

Morning all,

Please take a look at the attached file. I need advice on how to deal with this.
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Ladies Toilets.pptx
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stretch3144
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Re: Poor toilet hygiene

Post by stretch3144 »

Following on, I have had a look at the Workplace (Health, Safety & Welfare) Regulations:
Regulation 20 Sanitary conveniences
(1) Suitable and sufficient sanitary conveniences shall be provided at readily
accessible places.
(2) Without prejudice to the generality of paragraph (1), sanitary
conveniences shall not be suitable unless –
(a) the rooms containing them are adequately ventilated and lit;
(b) they and the rooms containing them are kept in a clean and orderly
condition;
and
(c) separate rooms containing conveniences are provided for men and
women except where and so far as each convenience is in a separate
room the door of which is capable of being secured from inside.
(3) It shall be sufficient compliance with the requirements in paragraph (1) to
provide sufficient sanitary conveniences in a workplace which is not a new
workplace, a modification, an extension or a conversion and which, immediately
before this regulation came into force in respect of it, was subject to the provisions
of the Factories Act 1961, if sanitary conveniences are provided in accordance with
the provisions of Part II of Schedule 1.

So if the toilets are in breach of this regulation (see highlighted paragraph), what do I do about it? If the Regulations are breached how is the breach enforced?
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Alexis
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Re: Poor toilet hygiene

Post by Alexis »

Hi stretch. This is quite disgusting and in my view a breach that HR should be very involved in!

You cannot stand outside the toilets all day every day to see whom the culprits are, but by looking at the horror, it would appear to me that the problem may lie in part with the actual sanitary Service Provider. They need to be contacted forthwith and come out to your workplace to remove, sanitise and replace with new bins in the first instance, afterwhich your cleaner should then "get tore in" and gut this appalling area.

I would make sure your cleaner has a member of HR with her/him to point out to HR the seriousness (and breach of H&S) of this situation as perhaps the cleaner needs some training.

By doing the above instantly, it provides an instant temporary solution, which in turn keeps the organisation within the law - for today anyway by the looks of things!

Once the deep clean has been done, I suggest:

1 Toolbox talk and signed hand-out to all staff regarding the rules which have to be complied with for ladies toilets.
2 Make sure they understand (HR backup) the consequences of breaking the rules.
3 Inform them of a little box to be placed somewhere close by along the route to the loo and if anyone sees someone breaking those rules, they should pop a note into the box with the culprits name to which HR should then follow up. (name and shame perhaps)
4 Cleaner obviously needs reassessing as to appropriate cleaning materials to be used and how to use them.
5 More frequent cleaning required. Reviewed regularly.
6 First and foremost the Service Provider needs to get things organised a lot better of course with review regularly.

Just a few thoughts from me which may offer some help.

There are other problems regarding differing cultures of course, but again, this is where HR can offer solutions.

One final thought.....ask the women to help keep this clean and get them on your side. I am sure they are quite sick at even the thought of going to this germ-ful area.
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Re: Poor toilet hygiene

Post by jonsi »

as an aside to what's been written above

...many users of this forum use 'handles' to mask their real identity, something I can well understand.
However, people attaching files to posts should take care because some personal data may be automatically attached. This may include the file creator's name and/or their business details. It's usually found under file Properties in PDF, .doc, .docx, .xls, .xlsx, ppt, .pptx files etc.
It's probably best to attach an 'anonymised' version rather than the one you're using at work.

Jonsi
(real name: dyn ag awgrym da)
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"Talk about Mental Illness - because it will touch your life this year. "
stretch3144
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Re: Poor toilet hygiene

Post by stretch3144 »

The saga continues...

Now, our building owner has removed hand towels from all our toilet and welfare facilities.
Their reason - the hand towels are blocking the toilets and sewage system!!

I need to fight this as I think it is unreasonable.
Reg 21 of Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations (2)(e) states that they 'include towels or other suitable means of drying'.
We have electric hand dryers, but they do not have the flip facility to dry faces. ACOP para 193 says that washbasins have to be large enough to wash hands, forearms and faces - which they are - so surely there should be means to dry hands, forearms and faces?

Paper towels are also used in the welfare areas for drying crockery and cutlery after use.

Are there any other regulations I can use against the building owner?

Thanks.
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Re: Poor toilet hygiene

Post by Alexis »

I am hoping others come in when they have a moment to offer some tried and tested advice Stretch.

In the meantime, their may be some information in this link to offer some help. http://www.personneltoday.com/search-results/?q=hygiene" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

As far as H&S law, I think you have covered that in the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations.
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