It is a universal problem. You have to go desperately and as usual there are no facilities around. It becomes slightly more difficult for the ladies, especially at public places and events. If the amenities are there, it is the long queue which is off-putting.

UiWE, a design company based in Denmark, has come up with something that will make life for ladies a little easier.

It has designed Pollee, a prototype urinal for girls. As UiWE says, it makes life easier for girls at festivals, outdoor parties and events.
It's all part of UiWE's Peebetter campaign, which is developing human solutions to peeing in public space—for both sexes.

The idea for PeeBetter project came about because of the problems faced by people at the annual Roskilde music festival, held in Denmark, one of the biggest music festivals in Northern Europe. This year nearly 750,000 people attended. Public sanitation is a nightmare.

Last year we had really long toilet queues, where it was often women who stood and waited. This meant that many girls ended up using the fence to urinate in,” says Signe Brink Pedersen, project manager at Roskilde Festival to metroXpress. He adds that such an option is difficult for many and they were forced to look for solutions.

Pollee debuted this summer at the massive Roskilde festival. In UiWE’s words: Pollee is an open air, touch-free urinal made for a semi-squat position. It can handle four women at a time compared with a traditional toilet's inefficient quantity of one. It also features the clean, rounded lines of contemporary Danish design.”

There are three design variations. The high-walled Pollee Shy for those with privacy concerns; the Pollee Topless, which has low outside walls and a fully covered bottom to afford a good view, yet some discretion; and the Pollee Naked with lower walls for women who don't mind letting it all hang out. (See Pictures at http://peebetter.dk/?cat=12)

This design is not going to revolutionize the world of pee, we know well. But we have a product that has to be optimized through trial and feedback, says Christian Pagh, president of PeeBetter.

UiWE is currently soliciting feedback, including posting a pee survey to hone the Pollee concept. “It is an integrated part of our approach to open up the design process and invite people to participate, comment and share their ideas,” their official website explains.

At the same festival this year, the Dutch design studio, AANDEBOOM came up with portable strap urinals called P-Tree which were strapped to tree trunks. P-Tree hooks up to a central sewerage system or a tank, which means it actually flushes. The organizers said that the problem of public peeing was significantly reduced.

Some Other Efforts

There is an app, Toilet Finder launched by BeTomorrow to locate easily the nearest public toilets/bathrooms around.

It claims to be the biggest world toilet database with more than 60,000 toilet places all over the world.

The application is based on user-contribution: everyone can report new or missing toilets.

The city of London has an innovative service SatLav to help locate the nearest public convenience. One has to just text the word Toilet to 80,097. There is a website BlueBadge which gives locations and information about public toilets in London.

Consider this, more people in the world own cellphones than have access to a toilet. November 19 is observed as the World Toilet Day.

Hopefully, with time and application, better and unique solutions for the basic necessities can be found.

London Medicine London