Survey: Bukit Batok, Tuas & Telok Blangah Hawker Centres / Coffee Shops Have the Dirtiest Public Toilets

Let’s talk dirty business.

On 26 May 2020, the Singapore Management University (SMU) issued a press release about toilet hygiene in Singapore coffee shops and hawker centres.

Through a study conducted from 10 Jan to 7 Feb 2020, SMU Senior Lecturer of Statistics Rosie Ching and her 157 SMU undergraduates carried out on-site reviews of public toilets and interviewed 8,217 customers and hawkers.

Named “Waterloo”, this is the second nationwide survey of the nation’s public toilets in coffee shops and hawker centres.

The first survey was conducted back in 2016, also done by Ms Ching and her students.

Here’s What They Found:

• Public toilet cleanliness has fallen, with every single factor in toilet cleanliness regressing
• The dirtiest toilets can be found at Tuas, Telok Blangah and Bukit Batok
• The cleanest toilet is at Marina South, followed by Tanglin and Changi
• Coffee shops toilets are “significantly dirtier” than toilets at hawker centres
• Cleanest toilets are handicapped toilets, followed by the male toilest with the female toilets being the dirtiest

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Feedback from the interviewees:

• Almost a quarter of 5,948 customers say they wouldn’t use the toilets there
• More than 60% said toilets must be “completely overhauled” (read: renovated and improved) to improve the cleanliness. Basically, they’re saying no hope liao, tear it down and rebuild it.
• Almost 97% of 2,269 coffee shops and hawker centres workers use the toilets there but more than half says they must be improved

Everyone Has A Part To Play:

The study also includes quotes from Waterloo’s supporting partners on the state of hygiene in Singapore’s public toilets.

Mr Jack Sim, who is the founder and CEO of the World Toilet Organisation, said that public toilets and personal hygiene are our first line of defence against Covid-19.

He asks that owners and operators employ “professional cleaners” and ensure “a good state of repair” in the toilets for public safety.

He added that members of the public can do their part by “avoiding coffee shops and hawker centres” with poor toilet cleanliness to motivate the owners to keep their toilets clean.

Dr William Wan, SKM General Secretary, pointed out that while owners must do their jobs, users also have a responsibility to keep the public toilets clean.

Treat the public toilet as though it’s your own toilet, he suggests.

This, you have to agree.

After all, how many times have you gone to the public toilet only to see the previous user’s “business” floating in the water?

Or wipe the toilet seat a gazillion times because suspicious yellowish droplets are everywhere?

Let’s not mention the stripes of toilet paper lying around everywhere in the cubicle.

While it is easier to point to the owners and say, why you never keep your toilets clean ah and encourage enforcement actions against them, we all know that no matter how responsible an owner is, the toilets will never be clean if a minority of the people in Singapore (aka the black sheeps who dirty public toilets) retains the third world mentality.

We’ve seen it done to shared bicycle firms and look where it has led to now?

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