Groningen's Toilet-Friendliest Municipality is Groningen

December 15, 2022

On Saturday, November 19, 2022 was the World Toilet Day. This day highlights the importance of good sanitation and access to clean and safe toilets for all.

In the Netherlands there is work to be done because it recent research has shown that one in five people regularly stay home because of the lack of toilets. We can therefore say that this is a social problem. In order to draw attention to this problem, on World Toilet Day we annually publish the well-known ranking of "the most toilet-friendly municipality in the Netherlands". But not only on World Toilet Day should attention be paid to (the solution of) this social problem. As far as we are concerned, it should always be on the agenda. That is why we zoom in on one of our 12 provinces each month, giving insight into how the municipalities within that province are doing.

We do not go down the provinces in alphabetical order, but based on the best municipality of the worst province to be found We start this month with the province of Groningen because municipality Groningen has finished in position 124. Below

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

The number of inhabitants per toilet  

So the most toilet-friendly municipality in the province of Groningen is the municipality of Groningen. With a total of 537 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 Groningen, we have divided up 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 Groningen), a total of 2,611 residents have to share one public/open toilet, with a total of 90 toilets. In the least scoring municipality (municipality of Pekela), there are 3 toilets for residents, leaving 4,065 residents to share the toilet. There is plenty of room for improvement! The number of people who have to share a toilet is 1 out of 6 indicators on which the national ranking is based.

Each month, we communicate the population per toilet of all municipalities within the county currently in the spotlight via our newsletter. Would you also like to be the first to receive this data in your mailbox every month? Then sign up for the newsletter!

Groningen province rankings

We have listed the full rankings of municipalities within the province of Groningen 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 view it in landscape or on a desktop.

Place (+/-) Municipality Toilets Residents
on 1 toilet
1 Equal Icon 0 Groningen 90 2.611
2 Equal Icon 0 The Hogeland 19 2.527
3 Equal Icon 0 Ems Delta 16 2.837
4 Equal Icon 0 Oldambt 14 2.752
5 Equal Icon 0 Westerkwartier 21 3.062
6 Equal Icon 0 Veendam 5 5.493
7 Equal Icon 0 Stadskanaal 9 3.539
8 Equal Icon 0 Westerwolde 9 2.952
9 Equal Icon 0 Mid-Groningen 18 3.383
10 Equal Icon 0 Pekela 3 4.065

Room for improvement

Nationally, the municipality of Groningen, with 537 points , ranks 124th out of a total of 344 municipalities in the Netherlands at that time. Measured against 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.

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