Spending A Penny...

Okay so most of us know what the phrase. “To spend a penny” is all about and for those that do not, it means to go to the toilet. Its origins come from the UK, when the very first coin operated toilet was introduced outside the Royal Exchange, London in the 1850’s. The cost was a penny and at first applied only to women toilets, but later the money making opportunity spread to male toilets.

Of course today any thought of spending a penny in order to use a public toilet is just that, a thought. The original penny in question was the old penny, which in modern currency equates to 0.3 of a new penny and so with toilet costs commonly costing 20 or 30 pence, the increase in cost is substantial. But some places go further, they add attendants who turn on the taps in the sinks for you, offer you liquid soap and then charge one or two pounds for the experience.

Okay, I think we have to expect that the cost of public toilets can be expensive and that there probably is a real need to claw some, if not all the costs back. I mean take the railways here in South Africa, they recently spent millions and millions and millions of pounds buying a fleet of new trains from a manufacturer in Spain. When they arrived it was deemed that the toilet seats, all 70 of them were not of the required standard and needed to be replaced. So replace them they did at a total cost of £2,625,000 (R42,000,000), which the bright ones amongst us will have worked out is £37, 500 (R600,000) per seat. So you would think there really should be a high cost in order to take a dump here, but no toilets on South Africa trains are free to use. So come on everyone if South Africa can spend that much just on toilet seats, and not charge for the unique experience, surely everyone else can see it in their hearts to make public toilets free.

That said I bet like me you are thinking that £37,500 (R600,000) per toilet seat is a lot of money, especially in a train toilet. Particularly when for just £4,700 (R76,000) you can buy the Toto Neorest 600, which comes with a handsfree lid opening and closing system, heated seat, auto and remote flushing, warm air ducts, air purifier and is self-cleaning. I haven’t looked on eBay, but I bet you could get one even cheaper on there and if you bulk bought 70 of them I am sure the cost would come down even more.

But, in order to provide a more balanced view of this train toilet cost, £2,625,000 (R42,000,000) is peanuts compared to the cost of providing dumping facilities on the International Space Station, where the toilet there cost a staggering £15,600,000 (R250,000,000). What is more, like the South Africa train toilets its free to use despite its staggering cost.

So there you have it 20 or 30 pence to go to the toilet is outrageous when you compare it to the high costing, but free facilities on South African Trains and the International Space Station.

A footnote to the South African train toilet saga is, the trains they bought from Spain for millions and millions of pounds and then spent over two and a half million pounds changing 70 toilet seats that came fitted as standard on the trains. Well, the trains turned out to be too tall to be operated on the South Africa Rail network, now that really is taking the piss and the South African Railway managers have clearly done a shit job.