Don't let nature catch you out in Warsaw

It seems the increasingly cost-prohibitive job of cleaning up after Varsovians will leave the city's center sans porta toilets.

All of Gmina Centrum's 130 portable toilets, following the Dec. 31 lapse of service agreements between the municipality and its two contracted toilet providers, are soon to be a thing of the past.

"We're removing 80 (portable toilets) throughout Gmina Centrum and should complete the process by the end of the week," said Jacek Sobiech, trade manager of portable toilet provider Toi Toi, which serves the area along with the firm Clipper. Jacek Chojnacki, Clipper's president, declined a telephone interview, but told local media last week his firm is also packing up its 50 units.

The situation is rooted in a public stink over the cost of servicing toilets and sanitation inspections. In the most recent round of bidding for 2002 service agreements with Gmina Centrum, toilet firms proposed large increases in maintenance costs from current levels of around zł. 20-zł. 30 per toilet a day.

"(Toi Toi and Clipper) tripled their prices in the bids, and we do not have that much money for that purpose," said Andrzej Steć of Centrum Gmina's Municipal Sanitation Board (MSB).

Toi Toi officials said the fees were hiked in order to clean and service the urban outhouses to meet inspection standards set by the MSB. Standards, they say, that have become too stringent.

"Damage or filth cannot be avoided because one user can destroy the work of the servicing team just five minutes after it leaves," Sobiech said. "The quality of service (mandated by MSB's standards) causes our costs to skyrocket."

Sobiech also cited fines levied by MSB's inspectors as justification for the fee increases. Some of the penalties amounted to a day's worth of servicing for Gmina Centrum, or zł. 1,000, Sobiech said. The MSB would not reveal the amount of Toi Toi's fines.

MSB officials said that only one firm consistently failed to meet its cleaning standards, but refused to name the offender. Inspections, performed daily at 7 a.m., 1 p.m. and at 6 p.m., revealed that toilets were simply filthy, or at times damaged by vandals. City officials rejected any claims that its three-a-day inspection regimen sets too high of a standard.

Regardless, the MSB said it would likely be March before city-center residents again see any of the familiar blue havens when nature calls. "We've already started (the tender) procedure," Steć said.

Meanwhile, no porta-alternatives are planned, he said.

Paul Shockley