on Average, each person between one and one-half and three years, spends on the toilet. But Rachel Cole-Wilkin brings there half her life. The 29-Year-old moved seven years ago from San Francisco to London to study acting. Why she stayed after graduation? Their public toilets are at the heart.
Rachel has been working since 2012 in London in the “Loo Tours”, tours to the silent Village. Your recognition sign at the meeting point is a plunger. High collected Pömpels pulls you through the streets of the British capital, dressed in socks in rainbow-coloured Ring, in tow people that want to learn more about toilets and the London sewer system.
In the United States are public toilets free of charge, tells Rachel. In Britain things are different: The request converted to often more than 50 cents per Tinkle. To “need” however, that is a basic human need, to demand of money is wrong, she says. So they took, any free toilet in the city to track down. “I was obsessed,” she says.
Loo tours in London
From the obsession developed an interest for the history of the toilet, and thus, the idea of guided tours to curious Klosetten to offer. There is hardly a more suitable place for the “Loo Tours” London: Here, in 1775, the inventor Alexander Cumming was the first Patent for the flush toilet issue.
Rachel’s Tour takes you from Waterloo Station across the Thames to Covent Garden. Is stopped at the “Jubiloo”, probably the most Patriotic toilet of the city, right next to the Ferris wheel London Eye. An architect has designed the house, is flushed with rain water. Everything screams here to Royal Britain. The Queen is smiling from the walls, the Union Jack is on the Klodeckeln, waste bins and Mirrors. The “Jubiloo” is Rachel’s Lieblingsklo – and, although you have to pay. The Service: After each guest, the Patriotic bowl is wiped once.
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The toilet cabin of the Jubiloo, probably the most Patriotic toilet of the city, next to the London Eye on the banks of the river Thames. An architect has designed the house, is flushed with rain water.
©Ilya Fisher/Loo Tours DPA
The national pride, Despite the rumor has it that the outhouse but it could soon be gone, the lease runs out. And even if there is a new, can no longer afford the operator maybe. Rents in London are high, rooms for a public wash. And must close the in sequence, they are frequently converted into flats or Bars.
municipalities estimates no money for WCs
The British Toilet Association (BTA), that there are in the UK, 40 per cent fewer public toilets than even ten years ago. This is mainly due to the fact that the government since 2011, the municipalities have less money. “As a result, the can no longer afford to operate the toilets,” says Raymond Martin, managing Director of BTA. For older people and people with disabilities need more and better-equipped Laundry rooms. Particularly in London, a city which sees annually more tourists than inhabitants, this is a Problem.
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Chamanna Segantini, 2729 meters, Pontresina, Graubünden
©Marco Volken
Also in Germany, the number of public toilets sinks. In Berlin there is not, according to information from the environment, Senator Regine Günther, only around 250 plants, enough in a metropolis with about 3.6 million inhabitants. It should, however, be back for more. In Nuremberg 2015 is set to historical advertising columns were replaced in the city, according to by those with a built-in toilet. Mostly tourists had complained of too few toilets.
So that you can find in the UK, the toilets that are left, also helped Rachel and the BTA to create an Online map for port-a-potties. For the centre of London, there is now even an App to Laundry rooms using Augmented Reality pointing.
Also, the “Jubiloo” you can find. From there, the “Loo Tour will” continue in the direction of the North, the next Stop on the Golden Jubilee Bridge in the middle of the Thames – the largest toilet in London.
Raw sewage in the river Thames
Each year, about 40 million cubic meters of sewage flow into the river. This is due to the fact that London’s Sewerage system is old. To alt. In 1865, the System was completed, the two main channels run underground, on the banks of the river Thames and are designed for the population of London over 150 years ago. At that time, about two million people lived in the city. In the meantime, the metropolis is scratching at the Nine-million mark. More and more people to make more Dirt, everyone knows just where to go so that no one knew in London for a long time.
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to urinate So it was decided for the following: What’s not up to the sewer, into the river. It is not a perfect solution, noted at the beginning of the 2000s. Opposite the London Eye, a kind of overflow therefore just pool in the Thames to catch the dirt. In six years, you want to be with the construction finished. Until then, every week, the noise continued to about 300 Olympic swimming pools of raw sewage basin down the river.
circumvented When the British at last with the river Thames, they caused “The Great Stink”, the big stink. By a heat wave in the summer of 1858 stank of the river so unbearable that the curtains were soaked in the Parliament in calcium chloride to mask the smell. It was thought to relocate the courts to Oxford. The construction of the sewer, it was decided by the government in only two weeks.
“The Loo Tour” continues in the direction of the Savoy Hotel, behind the building last street light that is still operated with methane from the sewage channels of London. Something Good has to the century-old System.
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Cornelia Neumeyer/DPA