The Toilet-Friendliest Municipality of Gelderland is Harderwijk

Feb. 15, 2023

On Saturday, November 19, 2022, it was World Toilet Day. On this day, attention is paid to the importance of good sanitation and access to clean and safe toilets for all.

In the Netherlands, there is work to be done because according to recent research has shown that one in five people regularly stay home because of the lack of toilets. It is therefore safe to say that this is a social problem. To draw attention to this problem on World Toilet Day we annually make the well-known ranking of "the most toilet-friendly municipality of the Netherlands" is announced.

Not only on World Toilet Day should attention be paid to (the solution of) this social problem. As far as we are concerned, this should always be on the agenda. That is why we zoom in on one of our 12 provinces every month on our website, giving insight into how the municipalities within that province are doing. Would you also like to be the first to receive this data in your mailbox every month? Sign up for the newsletter!


We go down the provinces not in alphabetical order, but by the best municipality of the worst province to be found. Last month it was the province of Flevoland and now it is Gelderland. Below is the month of publication for each province.

December 2022 - Province of Groningen - Municipality of Groningen (124)
January 2023 - Province of Flevoland - Municipality of Noordoostpolder (90)
February 2023 - Province of Gelderland - Municipality of Harderwijk (16)
March 2023 - Province of Overijssel - Municipality of Losser (11)
April 2023 - Province of Drenthe - Municipality of Assen (10)
May 2023 - Province of North Brabant - Municipality of Vught (7)
June 2023 - Province of Limburg - Municipality of Roermond (7) Province of Limburg - Municipality of Roermond (6)
July 2023 - Province of South Holland -Municipality of Rotterdam (5)
August 2023 - Province of North Holland - Municipality of Alkmaar (4)
September 2023 - Province of Friesland - Municipality of Schiermonnikoog (3)
Oktokber 2023 - Province of Utrecht - Municipality of Utrecht (2)
November 2023 - Province of Zeeland - Municipality of Veere (1)

Gelderland municipalities and number of inhabitants per toilet

The most toilet-friendly municipality in the province of Gelderland is the municipality of Harderwijk. With a total of 686 points, they managed to secure 1st place.

In order to paint a vivid and clear picture of the need for more toilets for the municipalities within the province of Gelderland, we have made a breakdown of the number of inhabitants per available toilet for each municipality. We want to emphasize that visitors and tourists to the municipality are not included here at
.

For example, even in the best scoring municipality in this province (municipality of Gelderland), a total of 1,685 residents have to share one public/open toilet, with a total of 29 toilets. In the least scoring municipality (municipality of Rozendaal), there are no toilets for the residents so the no residents can share the toilet. There is plenty of room for improvement! The number of people who have to share a toilet is 1 of the 6 indicators on which the national ranking is based.

Theranking of Gelderland province

We have listed the full rankings of municipalities within the province of Gelderland for you below and whether they have increased or decreased in the province compared to last year.

For a full view of the table, it is best to turn your mobile in landscape or look at it on a desktop.

Place(+/-)MunicipalityToilets Residents
on 1 toilet
1 Rise Icon 3 Harderwijk 29 1.685
2 Decline Icon 1 Druten 13 1.475
3 Rise Icon 8 Nunspeet 21 1.344
4 Rise Icon 1 Old
IJsselstreek
117 337
5 Rise Icon 1 West Betuwe 39 1.333
6 Rise Icon 10 Culemborg 33 891
7 Equal Icon 0 Elburg 14 1.696
8 Equal Icon 0 Arnhem 79 2.075
9 Rise Icon 1 Apeldoorn 70 2.366
10 Decline Icon 7 Aalten 15 1.807
11 Decline Icon 9 Winterswijk 22 1.327
12 Equal Icon 0 Wijchen 18 2.297
13 Decline Icon 4 Ermelo 15 1.817
14 Decline Icon 1 Nijkerk 24 1.846
15 Equal Icon 0 Zutphen 21 2.301
16 Decline Icon 2 Epe 13 2.558
17 Rise Icon 1 Doesburg 2 5.518
18 Decline Icon 1 Overbetuwe 26 1.856
19 Equal Icon 0 Pigeons 11 2.268
20 Rise Icon 2 Heerde 9 2.108
21 Decline Icon 1 Doetinchem 23 2.545
22 Rise Icon 1 Front 12 2.083
23 Rise Icon 11 Rheden 25 1.737
24 Equal Icon 0 Zaltbommel 11 2.723
25 Rise Icon 1 Ede 51 2.353
26 Rise Icon 1 Heumen 7 2.454
27 Rise Icon 2 Renkum 8 3.920
28 Decline Icon 3 Wells 10 2.460
29 Decline Icon 1 Wageningen 13 3.072
30 Equal Icon 0 Barneveld 23 2.634
31 Equal Icon 0 Berg and Dal 11 3.177
32 Decline Icon 11 Nijmegen 59 3.036
33 Decline Icon 1 Brummen 7 2.984
34 Rise Icon 4 Oldebroek 8 2.991
35 Rise Icon 4 Zevenaar 13 3.434
36 Decline Icon 1 Oost Gelre 10 2.960
37 Decline Icon 4 Montferland 13 2.797
38 Decline Icon 2 Hattem 5 2.461
39 Rise Icon 1 Lingewaard 11 4.269
40 Decline Icon 3 Scherpenzeel 4 2.579
41 Equal Icon 0 Neder-Betuwe 8 3.129
42 Rise Icon 8 West Maas
and Waal
2 9.838
43 Decline Icon 1 Lochem 10 3.407
44 Rise Icon 1 Berkelland 13 3.373
45 Decline Icon 2 Neighbours 9 3.017
46 Decline Icon 2 Tiel 13 3.252
47 Decline Icon 1 Maasdriel 5 5.101
48 Decline Icon 1 Westervoort 3 4.981
49 Decline Icon 1 Beuningen 5 5.247
50 Decline Icon 1 Bronckhorst 7 5.154
51 Decline Icon 1 Rozendaal 0

Room for improvement

Nationally, with 686 points , the municipality of Harderwijk ranks 16th out of a total of 344 municipalities in the Netherlands at that time. If you compare this with the 1,000 points that can be achieved, there is still plenty of room for improvement.

With a few simple steps, it is possible for every municipality to finish even higher in the national rankings in the coming year. There are more than enough achievable opportunities for all municipalities to become more toilet-friendly and thus not only more inclusive, but also more welcoming.

These include:

  1. Make toilets at municipal locations public for passersby.
  2. Installation of public (seasonal) restrooms in high-traffic locations.
  3. Local businesses are asking if their restrooms can be made public for passersby.
  4. Making restrooms clearly findable by becoming a partner of HogeNood and notifying restrooms and keeping track of dates in the HogeNood CMS, placing signs at
    location leading to the restroom, and placing stickers at restroom locations themselves to provide additional designation.  
  5. Keeping a sustainable toilet policy so that not only now, but also in the future, having sufficient hygienic toilets within the
    municipality are ensured.

Also become a toilet-friendly municipality? Then get in touch.

The complete ranking of toilet-friendly municipalities of the Netherlands 2022

For those who want to discover where their own municipality ended up, we have the complete ranking of all 344 for World Toilet Day 2022 also as an interesting article. In it you can read how the list came about and how many points each municipality managed to achieve in 2022. There is also the map which provides insight into the proximity of all notified toilets in the HogeNood app.

Monthly updates on each province via the newsletter

From now on, we will publish a monthly article focusing on one of our 12 provinces. Always know that you will be the first to be informed about the most toilet-friendly municipality of each province? Then sign up for the newsletter! That way you can assure yourself
that you will get the latest list in your inbox as soon as it is put online!

Note: the dates used in this article is a snapshot of World Toilet Day 2022, changes may have occurred in the interim.