Photo credit: Portland Loo
While some cities will have you wandering down dark alleys in order to find a filthy public restroom, Portland, Oregon wants to change all that with their patented “Portland Loo” toilets. Far from being ordinary stand-alone public restrooms, the Loos are entirely solar-powered and do not require any electricity to operate. The interiors of the units are equipped with skylights, electric light sensors, motion detectors, and LED lighting, making them possibly the most energy-efficient public restrooms – along with being the only ones to have their own Facebook page, too.
The Portland Loos are cheaper than typical on-grid public toilets, costing around $60,000 to make and $12,000 per year to maintain, each requiring only a single sewer and water hook-up. The City of Portland is marketing the technology to other cities, and have recently sold a Loo to Victoria, British Columbia. In talking to The Statesmen Journal, City Commissioner Randy Leonard said that “we can ship them to somebody for $99,000 and all they have to do is bolt them on to their sidewalk and hook them up to sewer and water.”
Each Portland Loo is ten feet tall and made with a lightweight steel shell and stainless steel wall panels covered with an anti-graffiti coating. Open slots near the head and feet help police monitor them for any illegal activity, and there are no mirrors or faucets inside to be vandalized. Easy to keep clean, free of graffiti and solar-powered? Let’s hope residents of other cities see their own version of the Loo pop up on a local street corner soon.
Interested in learning more? Check out a short documentary about the Portland Loo made by Shield Films: