Korean cities praised for best public toilets
Seoul, 4 November 2008:
The Korean cities of Seongbuk and Jinju, have won an international competition to find the best public toilets – or as one newspaper put it “they have flushed away the opposition”. In Seongbuk, which is part of the Korean capital of Seoul, local government has investid significant sums of money into rehabilitating and upgrading government-operated facilities and those in public institutions. The number of public toilets has grown from 129 in 2003 to 201 in 2008, for a population of about 460 000.
The number of users had almost doubled from 1.3 million to 2.4 million. At the same time Seongbuk had introduced measures to ensure safety in its facilities and to make them more accessible to disabled people, the elderly, children and foreign visitors.
Similarly, the judges praised efforts by Jinju authorities to provide more facilities and to upgrade existing ones. The number of toilets in the city had more than tripled to a total of 336 between 1995 and today. Jinju has a population of about 340 000. A program of custodian training and regular inspections ensured that the facilities were well maintained and hygienic.
A recent survey showed that among users of Jinju’s public toilets, more than 80 percent reported satisfaction with the state of the facilities. The mayors of Seongbuk and Jinju will receive the awards at the World Toilet Summit & Expo 2008, held in Macau (China) this month. (Report by abs-cbnNEWS)
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