User:JustinePorto/Public toilets in Spain

Public toilets in Spain have a lot of words that can be used to describe them. There are around six per 100,000 people in Spain, mostly of the flush toilet kind. While they are often clean, they often run out of toilet paper.

Public toilets
Local words for public toilets include los servicios, baños, aseos and lavabos. Men's toilets are called caballeros or señores, while women's toilets are called damas or señoras.

A 2021 study found there were six public toilets per 100,000 people. Most toilets are Western style sit toilets. In very rural and isolated areas, a few squat toilets are still in use in public toilets. One place people use when there is a lack of public toilets are the facilities at fast food style restaurants. Most public toilets maintain a level of cleanliness, but they do not always replace toilet paper when it runs out.

There were only 27 municipal public toilets in Madrid, a city with a population of three million, in 2016. Maintenance of the self-cleaning toilets in the city is funded in part through advertising on the side of the fixed street level public toilets. They are located at places like Plaza de Jacinto Benavente, Paseo de la Infanta Isabel, Colón, Cibles and Tirso de Molina. They smelled and were frequently broken. The toilets were also frequently prone to vandalism, resulting in one moving to a new location. They became free to use in April 2021, which made some problems worse.

The toilets at the Atocha train station cost €0.50. Faro Chill Art in Costa Adeje has men's urinals shaped like nude women.

History
The first public toilets in Spain opened in Madrid, at Puerta del Sol in 1836. Modeled after the public toilets already found in Paris, they included six men's stalls three women's stalls. It was four cuartos to use them, which included the space for reading newspapers and shoe shining services.

In 1844 in Barcelona, M. Josef Cardailhac proposed installing a new mechanical public urinal, modeling his idea on existing public urinals in London and Paris. He argued that the installation of public urinals would improve cleanliness on the streets, defray street cleaning costs and and improve public health. Cost of maintenance could be defrayed by charging users a small fee. The Comisión Permanente de Salubridad Pública approved of the effort on 25 February 1850, saying, “the usefulness and almost imperative need to establish public piss-pools in this Capital, whether viewed under the idea of ​​public comfort, or under that of the morality and decorum that the state of culture of a population demands [their creation]”. The first one was installed at Pla de Palau in 1857.

The Jennings & Company had installed their flush toilets in public toilets in Paris, Florence, Madrid, Berlin, Sydney and South America by 1895.

Public toilets in Barcelona were improved as part of Exhibition of 1929. Men would sometimes carve holes into bathroom stall doors  to observe women peeing in the 1990s in Spain.

As part of the 2002 Andalucía regional government budget, they allocated funding for the construction of public toilets.

Regional and global situation impacting public toilets in Spain
Baño is the most common way to say toilet in Spanish speaking countries. Other words for toilet include aseo, váter, retrete, servicio, lavabo, sanitarios, regadera, bidé, tina, lavamanos and orinal. Men's toilets are called hombres, while women's toilets are called mujeres. Unisex toilets are called baño unisex. Toilet paper is called papel higiénico.

Despite toilet paper being used in parts of China starting in the mid-800s, paper was expensive to produce and considered valuable; this meant most places did not start using toilet paper until relatively late. The lack of public toilets caused a stink on the streets in major cities in the 1850s. Flush toilets were introduced in Europe during the 1860s and soon became quite popular.