Imagine you are trying on clothes in a store and suddenly you really need to go to the toilet. It is not allowed in the store where you are. That’s just the policy. It happens regularly to Rianne Meersschaert from Breda due to her disease MS. And that needs to change, she thinks.
Rianne has bladder and intestinal problems as a result of MS. “The damage to my nerve pathways has caused a disruption in the control of the bladder muscle and sphincter. You can imagine: this sometimes causes difficult situations.”
She often has to go to the toilet suddenly. “I don’t see it coming. If I can’t do it right away, I’m actually going to wet my pants.” Finding an open toilet is difficult. That is why she and others are going out in her hometown to arrange more accessible toilets.
“There were only 66 public toilets in Breda: far too few for such a large municipality.”
This is part of PLEE-list Breda, a project that should ensure more open toilets throughout the municipality. This is done through the organization Breda Gelijk! who was commissioned by the municipality to start working on this in 2023. Rianne: “We want to find 200 toilets that people can go to and 40 wheelchair-accessible toilets. In Breda there were only 66 public toilets: far too few for such a large municipality.”
This number is now expanding. For this purpose, Rianne visits entrepreneurs together with other volunteers. “We ask people everywhere if they can go to the toilet. We also add them to the High Emergency app, which lists open toilets,” she explains. “They also get a sticker at the door, so that people can be sure they can go there.”
“It’s a shame and really bizarre that there is no good solution for them.”
That is often unclear to people now. It ensures that people who are often in dire need do not dare to leave the house. Rianne: “According to the Toilet Alliance, one in four Dutch people sometimes stays at home due to the lack of toilets. It is a shame and really bizarre that there is no good solution for them.”
Fortunately, more and more entrepreneurs are opening their toilets. One of them is Saar Heuvens from Do Spaces: “I was tipped off by someone and I immediately thought it was a good initiative. We are close to the station, so people sometimes come who really need to go to the toilet.”
Rianne is happy with people like Saar. She hopes that open toilets will become more and more normal. “Everyone has to go to the toilet sometimes. Ultimately, it benefits everyone if there are more toilets that you can go to.”
Breda is in 147th place on the list toilet friendliness in municipalities 2024. The municipality of Vught scores a lot better with fifth place. The Brabant municipalities of Baarle-Nassau, Waalre and Boekel are far down on the list of 342 municipalities.
Various factors are taken into account for the ranking, including the number of inhabitants per toilet. In addition, wheelchair accessibility is important and toilets receive more points than urinals. The distribution and policy of the municipality also play a role.
Waiting for privacy settings…