KOCHI: Architect Ganga Dileep and her junior associates were travelling through Chennai in 2016.
During the course of their five-day stay, they depended on public infrastructure, including railway stations and bus depots, and they constantly used public toilets. What surprised Ganga, who was aware of the notion that many places in Tamil Nadu were not very hygienic, was that most of the toilets she used, were actually quite clean. “This was the complete opposite to the situation back home in Kerala. Our toilets are one of the worst as we have an utter disregard in keeping it clean,” she said.
This discovery brought the founder of the ‘Recycle Bin’ back to Thiruvananthapuram where she and her firm, who were approached by the Thiruvananthapuram orporation, started studying the condition of toilets in the capital city.“We discovered that most of the toilets were not even gender-friendly. Though there is explicit separation of men and women toilets, it is hardly gender-sensitive. Women have to walk through open public urinals to enter their toilets,” Ganga said.
The architect says that the positioning of the toilets in public spaces also show how authorities are least bothered about the state of latrines in the state. “The toilets are always placed in the back or some place where people can’t see it immediately. This is an attitude issue,” Ganga adds.In foreign countries, daily monitoring of toilets is made mandatory by authorities. “There are quantitative and qualitative reviews about the kind of toilets and its conditions which is what we are trying to do through our app,” said Ganga.
Talks
Several campaigns have been held by Recyclebin on the project titled Toilet Tales. Also, talks have been initiated in several areas in the capital.
Kakkoos app
True to its name, the kakkoos app, helps the public find toilets near their location. “Right now, we have documented the images of all the toilets in the capital. We invited volunteers for the project and they send us a list. There was information about space, the lighting in the bathroom and whether it is located in a good position. We plan to make all this information public in the coming days,” said Ganga. Meanwhile, the team hopes to document the rest of the toilets across the state in the near future.