Toilets for Female Tradies
In September, I was lucky enough to attend the Women In Trades Conferences in both Wellington and Christchurch. An incredible group of women were there and a huge amount of supporting businesses in the trades industry. There were some really interesting conversations at the end of each evening, where a panel of women working in the industry answered questions and generally spoke about their experiences as women in trades.
One such topic which stood out to me was the subject of toilets for some female tradies, being quite often ‘overlooked’ on construction sites. Zoe, one of the discussion panellists at the Christchurch event, spoke eloquently about her experience as a scaffolder on various construction sites that lacked a toilet. “It’s an expense to have a toilet on site, so that expense falls on the builder or it falls on the homeowner, or whoever’s job it is. So if builders can avoid getting a toilet, getting a portaloo, they generally will, despite the fact that it’s a health and safety issue,” Zoe explained.
My partner owns a construction company and I have been known to join him on-site now and then for various reasons. The other day I went to the site for the day at a house where they were building a separate garage for the owners. There was no toilet available on site, as the owners were not home, and no portaloo had been organised for the site. I had to go to the toilet about three times that day, which resulted in me walking to the corner of the property and squatting behind a bush. This, as you can imagine, brought the issue of toilets on sites right to the forefront of my mind again!
According to Trade Careers, only 13% of all tradies are women in New Zealand. Being even more of a minority as a female scaffolder, Zoe spoke about the issue with toilets from her perspective. “The toilet thing for me personally, and I think for subcontractors, is quite a big problem, just because there are not consistently women on site, and there doesn’t seem to be much enforcement around toilets.” Zoe continued to say that if you are lucky enough to have a toilet on site, it’s most likely to be a portaloo that you are sharing with countless men - her face said it all.
Another panellist, Tendy, spoke of her experience with toilets as the only female builder on many of the sites on which she works. “I share a site with just men, so it’s just a portaloo, and they can be pretty gross.” Tendy told us how she advocated for herself by going to her boss and requesting that they either have two portaloos or one provided with sanitary bins. She noted that occasionally there are other female contractors, mainly painters, who come to her building site, “that's the same issue, we get our periods, and it’s just a normal thing and every woman gets it so why not provide toilets for those women as well.”
Women’s toilets are often overlooked and the provisions of sanitary disposal and the use of menstrual cups and tampons are just not given thought. Zoe mentioned the importance of access to free-flowing water; “if you use a menstrual cup, for example, it’s impossible in a portaloo, unless you’re bringing in a bottle of water… some things just haven’t been thought about yet.” However, this lack of thought will be forcing women tradies all over New Zealand to take drastic action, risking their health, safety and hygiene through practices like drinking less water or deliberately delaying their menstrual cycles.
Now it’s all very well highlighting this problem, but what about some solutions? What can we do to ensure we have access to toilets and flowing water on site?
According to Worksafe’s guidelines on ‘Facilities on construction sites,’ “Where females are engaged or employed, there should be suitable provision for the disposal of sanitary towels. Where conveniences for each sex are provided they shall be separated by walls of full height.” Therefore if you are working on any site, there should be a toilet provided with sanitary towel disposal. Attached below is a link to this information should you need to provide it to anyone to help assist you in getting these facilities on your sites.*
I emailed the company ‘Superloo’ to ask them about the kinds of portaloos they usually hire to trade contractors. Grant was very accommodating and gave me the following information:
“We do supply & service Sanitary Bins on request; our sales team do promote this where possible. Our units come with hand sanitiser. We have found clients with women on site are more likely to upgrade from Non-Flush to Recirc Flush Toilets.”
This gave me a bit of hope, that there are companies out there thinking of us. Grant mentioned, however, that portable toilets with hand basins and flush capabilities come with extra risks such as water potentially sitting for long periods of time, foreign objects being disposed of inside the tanks and contaminating the water, which then become hard to flush and decontaminate.
If you are dealing with less than satisfactory toilet facilities on your sites, it's definitely something you can bring up and discuss with your boss or the site manager. You are legally allowed to request a toilet with a sanitary bin at the very least. We now have more women in different trades and as contractors who need the opportunity to have a safe sanitary toilet to use whenever the need arises. Have women not been in the industry long enough for people to think about these things? In 2022 should we be able to expect a higher standard for women?
Let me know what you think. If you are a female tradie, how do you deal with the lack of a toilet, or what have you done to make sure one is provided on your sites? We would love to hear from you if you have a positive story about getting the right facilities to make work a more comfortable place in the dunny department!