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	(+/-)	Municipality	Toilets	Residents on 1 toilet
1	3	Harderwijk	29	1.685
2	1	Druten	13	1.475
3	8	Nunspeet	21	1.344
4	1	Old IJsselstreek	117	337
5	1	West Betuwe	39	1.333
6	10	Culemborg	33	891
7	0	Elburg	14	1.696
8	0	Arnhem	79	2.075
9	1	Apeldoorn	70	2.366
10	7	Aalten	15	1.807
11	9	Winterswijk	22	1.327
12	0	Wijchen	18	2.297
13	4	Ermelo	15	1.817
14	1	Nijkerk	24	1.846
15	0	Zutphen	21	2.301
16	2	Epe	13	2.558
17	1	Doesburg	2	5.518
18	1	Overbetuwe	26	1.856
19	0	Pigeons	11	2.268
20	2	Heerde	9	2.108
21	1	Doetinchem	23	2.545
22	1	Front	12	2.083
23	11	Rheden	25	1.737
24	0	Zaltbommel	11	2.723

25	1	Ede	51	2.353
26	1	Heumen	7	2.454
27	2	Renkum	8	3.920
28	3	Wells	10	2.460
29	1	Wageningen	13	3.072
30	0	Barneveld	23	2.634
31	0	Berg and Dal	11	3.177
32	11	Nijmegen	59	3.036
33	1	Brummen	7	2.984
34	4	Oldebroek	8	2.991
35	4	Zevenaar	13	3.434
36	1	Oost Gelre	10	2.960
37	4	Montferland	13	2.797
38	2	Hattem	5	2.461
39	1	Lingewaard	11	4.269
40	3	Scherpenzeel	4	2.579
41	0	Neder-Betuwe	8	3.129
42	8	West Maas and Waal	2	9.838
43	1	Lochem	10	3.407
44	1	Berkelland	13	3.373
45	2	Neighbours	9	3.017
46	2	Tiel	13	3.252
47	1	Maasdriel	5	5.101
48	1	Westervoort	3	4.981
49	1	Beuningen	5	5.247
50	1	Bronckhorst	7	5.154
51	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.