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For as long as I can remember the porta potty has been a staple on every construction site.  Though porta potties still dominate the sanitation needs of construction sites we are beginning to see a shift to restroom trailers.  We are receiving more and more calls from construction companies interested in purchasing or renting restroom trailers for their job sites.  

Often we are finding that jobs contractors are bidding on that requires union labor are requiring the site to have a restroom trailer with running hot water, heat, air-conditioning and flushing toilets for the duration of the project.  In Ontario  under regulation 213/91 all job sites are required to provide portable toilets with water or chemical flush toilets and must be equipped with a trap or positive seal separating the waste tank from the toilet bowl.  They also require that the restrooms be equipped with heat, and a wash basin with both hot and cold water when reasonably possible.

A restroom trailer may seem like an unneeded luxury to those of you who have grown up in the sanitation or construction industry, but let’s think about this for a minute.  If you have ever owned or managed a business you know how expensive it is to train new employees and the costs that are incurred from lack of production when employees call off sick.  So if having a restroom trailer on your job site with running hot water, heat, air-conditioning, and flushing toilets instead of a standard porta potty helps with employee retention, and can reduce sick days it is well worth the additional cost.

What does this change mean to you as a Sanitation Company? Though there will probably not be any huge impacts to your business over night it would be wise to keep and eye on this trend and changing sanitation regulations.  Keeping and eye on this change and allocating a larger percentage of your new equipment budget towards restroom trailers rather than traditional portables will allow you to stay ahead of this change and will help you avoid having a yard with more portables than you are able to rent.  This shift will also be a benefit to established sanitation companies because it will create higher barriers to entry into the construction sanitation business as the cost to purchase a restroom trailer is greater than that of a traditional portable.  The bottom line is if we as an industry stay ahead of this and are prepared for the shift it can very good for all of us.