If you oversee a construction crew, chances are that you understand the benefits of having porta potties readily available to your employees. In addition to boosting employee morale and the convenience that porta potties bring to your site, you may be legally obligated to do so.
OSHA regulations require employers to provide all construction workers with immediate and sanitary availability to toilet facilities. You must provide an appropriate number of restrooms to prevent long lines and extended delays. The short version is that your employees must always have access to a clean, well-lit, well-ventilated, and secure toilet facility. You must also provide soap and water and/or antibacterial hand cleanser, as well as some form of sanitary way to dry hands.
How Many Porta Potties Do You Need?
Per OSHA standards, employers with 20 or fewer employees must provide one toilet for their workers. If you have more than 20 employees, you must provide one toilet and one urinal per 40 workers. However, meeting the bare minimum of these requirements might result in long waits, meaning that you are still not meeting OSHA requirements. We recommend one porta potty per ten employees or so. Tally up your number of workers, then round that number up to ten. It’s always smart to get more toilets than you think you’ll need.
Where to Place Your Porta Potties
Your first consideration when choosing where to place your porta potties should be the safety of your workers. Try to keep them about 15 feet away from curbs, walkways, driveways, or main roads. Choose a clean and level surface (that will stay level) and, if you’re doing road construction, use concrete barriers to keep your employees safe from oncoming traffic. Make sure that your porta potty is still able to be easily accessed by the sanitation trucks for cleaning and servicing.
Who Keeps the Porta Potties Clean?
There are specific laws surrounding sanitation and whether certain workers can come into contact with human waste – which is considered a hazardous material. Rest assured: the actual cleaning of the porta potties will not fall to you or to any of your employees. That role falls to professional sanitation workers, who drive special trucks and operate specific equipment designed to remove and dispose of the waste in a safe and effective manner.
Learn More
If you have any more questions about using porta potties at your construction site, feel free to contact Mountain Top Portable Toilets and Septic Service today!
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