Portable Toilets

There are moments when a street photographer gets someone, a total stranger, to willingly help with a photo. No need to plan for the shot – a person just decides to make that shot mean more than it was originally intended.

I was walking on a back street of Palo Alto, California when I saw a portable toilet in front of a home under renovation. Nothing new there, except that I had not seen a portable toilet called “Honey Bucket”! So, I was planning to take a photo so I can research and learn about this specific toilet. 

Just as I was about to depress the shutter, a worker voluntarily walked into the frame and assumed the appropriate position to explain the toilet! (See bottom corner on right of frame.)

Perfect. Now I had a photo to use with my story.

… I have seen and used bucket toilets in areas of the world when in disaster or war zones. When there is no water to flush toilets or no sewer systems, a bucket toilet makes a lot of sense. In fact, my search showed that there are still a number of countries where bucket toilets are used. Among them Namibia, Ghana, and Kenya. It is not only an issue of sewer system availability only, but also of ambient temperatures. For example I have seen outhouses in Baltic and Easter European countries, but sometimes even outhouses are difficult to build or maintain. That is why one still finds bucket toilets in Alaskan rural villages such as those in the Bethel area of the Yukon–Kuskokwim Delta.

Perhaps portable toilets in Alaska will disappear with climate change, soon… After all the British pail closets are now part of the 20th century history. So will soon be, according to the government plan, the use of “bucket systems” in the Free State, Eastern Cape, Western Cape and Northern Cape provinces of South Africa.

… So, I had seen portable toilets called “Porta-Potty” on the East Cost of the US; “Port-a-John” in the Midwest; but it was the first time I see a “Honey Bucket.”  Probably my favorite remains the so much more sophisticated “Portaloo” in the UK!

And I smiled when I recalled the writing on the loo door of a bar in Edinburgh that read:

                                  “The Place Where Even Kings Must Go on Foot”

January 28, 2016

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2016