1. Use antibacterial urinal cakes in urinals to reduce pungent smell of musty, dried urine.
2. Create mandatory cleaning standards and expectations. Certainly if the School of Divinity can have squeaky clean bathroom, so too can Owen.
3. Put bigger trash receptacles in bathrooms in order to fully capture all used paper towels.
For your consideration.....
While you're at it, can you replace all of the toilets in the building? Simply horrifying.
ReplyDeleteI think some combination of ideas 1 and 2 might be ideal. The bathrooms smell less than good. I'm not certain that idea 3 will effectively solve the problem, although it might help a bit. My concern there would be how visually unappealing some vast vat full of soiled paper towels might be (and how that might potentially contribute to the general odor situation).
The concern with #2 is implementation, but I think some form of effectively holding students to some new code of cleanliness would make this a great idea.
#1 would obviously help things.
I'm glad that someone is on this! I really like ideas 1 and 3. Those two in particular are great because they should be easy enough to implement and will provide a noticeable impact.
ReplyDeleteMy thought on 2 is that it's more of a service, whereas 1 and 3 are a deliverable. At the end of the day with 2, we have to hope that the janitors will follow the guidelines. But with 1 and 3 we directly fix a problem.
#3 is a great idea. The trash is always full in bathrooms.
ReplyDeleteNumber 2 might be hard to implement as it requires continuous monitoring. You will need to get a lot of support from the custodial stuff. Make sure you think about how to make sure this continues.
ReplyDeleteI don't know about number 1 from personal experience, but I've heard a lot about that. I think that this could definitely be a good thing, especially as we have guests in the building everyday.
Good ideas though! The bathrooms need a lot of work!
The bathrooms are an absolute mess, so I hope you can figure something out!
ReplyDeleteSimiliar to Amy, I don't have any experience with Number 1. Number 2 seems like that should already be in place, but perhaps just not executed. I think increasing the number of times the bathroom is checked/cleaned would definitely help.
As far as Number 3, I have thought about this, too. Wouldn't a simpler solution be to install hand driers? Therefore eliminating paper towels at all?
Great comparison in #2, can you look into ways that they keep their bathrooms clean? I like idea #1, it might help the bathrooms smell just a little better, but I'm not sure that urinal cakes work with our waterless urinals, but check into it! Great ideas, I see that the bathrooms really stick out in people's minds around our school unfortunately.
ReplyDeleteGreat ideas. I like them.
ReplyDelete#1 will definately work. We do that in many bathrooms in Japan. Urinal cake also works as a target we mentioned in our post.
In terms of monitoring in #2, how about creating a kind of reporting system by bathroom users?
My team got the same idea Kimberly suggested. I think introducing hand driers is also a cost-effective approach in the long run.
I think they are all really great ideas. I'm not sure how a urinal cake would work in the waterless urinals (but there has to be something to improve the smell, etc). I think you've definitely identified a problem and any improvement would be huge. I think its not only a problem for the owen student body, but when recruiters and potential students come, it can't give a good impression. Also I agree with kimberly and hiro a hand dryer in the bathrooms instead of paper towels would cut down on the waste and solve #3.
ReplyDeleteMakes a lot of sense. I would like to see the trash cans be just outside the bathrooms to allow me to open the door with my paper towel and then dispose of it properly.
ReplyDeleteI think you would have challenges creating new standards of cleanliness in the bathrooms due to union requirements but if you can go for it.
I think this is a great initiative with very feasible concepts. Have you looked into improving the existing solutions (air freshener on the wall? Also, if you didn't already know, there is an OSGA committee working on facilities - reach out to Claudia Escobedo and she may be able to point you in the right direction and provide you with very valuable resources.
ReplyDeleteThis is definitely a critical problem that we need to address, both for ourselves and the impression we create for visitors.
ReplyDeleteI like your third idea the best. It is the most tangible to implement and will create the most significant improvement. However, I think you need to introduce some sort of device to compress the massive pile of paper towels that are typically overflowing from the trash bins. People could use this to compress the pile and alleviate many of the overflow issues.
I agree with most of the comments above. I think #1 sounds like a great idea, although I have no direct experience mysef. Could you also use those stick on toilet bowl cleaners in the women's bathrooms?
ReplyDelete#3 sounds like a perfect and simple solution! The garbage cans are always full and it would definitely help with the cleanliness.
Yes please, let's make with the urinal cakes ASAP.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Jonathan in that ideas 1 and 3 are great. That said, given the behavioral changes on the part of students that would need to occur for this idea to be considered a success, have you thought through how you'll actually make students throw things away? It seems like that's where the real challenge is. No one is willing to take responsibility for his/her actions. So, perhaps some sort of creative campaign around keeping bathrooms clean is necessary...could you involve some Marketing concentrators perhaps?
ReplyDelete#1, it works in Japan. I used to shoot the urinal cake and enjoyed to change its shape. Alternatively or in addition to that, you can put the urine absorption mat under the urinal.
ReplyDeleteYes, we need bigger trash, hand driers or regular cleanup (twice a day for example). You may ask OSGA to organize one week "Owen Cleanup Campaign" including not only bathrooms but also classrooms, printer areas, etc.
I am also curious as to the effects of a urinal cake in a waterless urinal (which is a wonder in itself). The issue of smell may actually be because the damn things don't use water - how to they stay clean?! I've always wondered this. While a cake may mask the smell, the sanitary aspect may still plague our hallowed 'rooms.
ReplyDeleteAnd while bigger trashcans may solve the issue, the janitorial staff still has to take them out. And my fear is with bigger cans, they will go longer without cleaning them. It is a vicious cycle. We just need someone to take them out more often.
I agree with number 1. Waterless urinals may be the most unsanitary, disgusting concept ever invented.
ReplyDeleteI like idea #2 the best. It seems that it really gets at the heart of the issue - and can involve both standards for students as well as standards for the cleaning crew. Many public areas have a document that people initial when the bathroom has been cleaned or a number/email for if there is an issue with the bathroom, and these could be ways to enfore your mandatory standards.
ReplyDeleteI don't have experience with #1. #3 is a good idea, but I preferred #2.
If it smells, it's probably not the urinals - it's probably faulty aim. There's also precious little ventilation inside the restrooms, but that's probably beyond the scope of your project. Also, don't assume you know the answer (ie., deodorant cakes) --check with Lee (the janitor) and get his read on it. He probably knows exactly what would help keep the restrooms tidy and fresh (and it's likely that no one asks him his opinion about it).
ReplyDeleteRather than bigger trash receptacles for the paper towels, how about ditching the paper towels altogether and getting electronic blowing dryers. (You could keep one towel dispenser, but put it at the far end of the restroom to disincentive its use.) Blowers are more hygienic and more ecologically friendly and would to add to the sustainability efforts that were the goal when the waterless urinals were first installed.
Overall, I would discourage dumping the problem on the janitor/cleaning crew. Push the responsibility / pain back on to those (few) who make the mess.
I like your project and agree that the bathrooms are so deplorable!
ReplyDeleteYour first and third ideas are great and would be effective. For your second idea, the description of your solution itself is very vague. I would also like to believe that there is a stated standard, its just being ignored or poorly implemented. You may have more impact by attacking analyzing and improving the implementation.
Totally agree that this is a huge problem! I think option 3 would solve a lot of problems and would be easy to do. I can't even recall a time when the garbage in the bathroom has been empty. It's always overflowing with paper towels and sometimes gross other crap. How hard could it be to put a bigger trash bin?
ReplyDeleteI have already posted on this one but something occurred to me that would probably work really well.
ReplyDeleteThere is a stick by the SC Johnson company that allows you to stick a good smelling cleaning gel to the side of the toilet bowl. Maybe you could combine with the group that wanted to put targets in the urinals to improve aim. Two birds one stone.
http://www.scrubbingbubbles.com/Products/Pages/toilet-cleaning-gel.aspx
There is a stick by the SC Johnson company that allows you to stick a good smelling cleaning gel to the side of the toilet bowl. Maybe you could combine with the group that wanted to improve the smell of the urinals. Two birds one stone.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.scrubbingbubbles.com/Products/Pages/toilet-cleaning-gel.aspx