Roermond is the most toilet-friendly municipality in Limburg

20 April 2022

Friday 19 November 2021 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.

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There is work to be done in the Netherlands, because recent research has shown that one in five people regularly stays at home because of a lack of toilets. We can therefore say that there is a social problem. In order to draw attention to this problem, we annually announce the well-known ranking of "the most toilet-friendly municipality in the Netherlands" on World Toilet Day. But it is not only on World Toilet Day that attention should 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 every month, giving insight into how the municipalities within that province are doing.

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We do not go through the provinces alphabetically, but on the basis of the rankings.

December: Province of Groningen
January: Province of Flevoland
February: Province of Zeeland
March: Province of North Brabant

And this month it is the province of Limburg that we are taking a closer look at.

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The number of inhabitants per toilet  

The toilet-friendly municipality of the province of Limburg is the municipality of Roermond. With a total of 719 points, they managed to secure first place.

In order to paint a clear picture of the need for more toilets in the municipalities of the province of Limburg, we have broken down the number of inhabitants per toilet in each
municipality. We would like to emphasise that visitors and tourists to the municipality are not included in this
.

For example, even in the best scoring municipality of this province (municipality of Roermond) a total of 852 inhabitants have to share one public/open toilet. In the lowest scoring municipality (Voerendaal) there are no toilets at all for the inhabitants to share, so if you compare this with the municipality of Meerssen, which is in second place, it is not so bad. If we compare it to the municipality of Meerssen, which is in second-to-last place, then 18,661 inhabitants have to share that one toilet. That is a huge difference!

The number of people who have to share a toilet is one of the 6 indicators on which the national ranking is based. Every month we communicate the number of inhabitants per toilet of all municipalities within the province that is in the spotlight at that moment via our newsletter. Would you like to be the first to receive this data in your mailbox every month? Then subscribe to the newsletter at the end of this article!

The ranking of province Limburg

The complete ranking of the municipalities within the province of Limburg is listed below. You can read the list as follows:

Position within province and name of municipality / number of inhabitants per toilet / (position on the Dutch ranking list)

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1. Roermond 852 (8)
2. Beesel 1,223 (9)
3. Valkenburg aan de Geul 1,364 (24)
4. Nederweert 1,431 (30)
5. Venray 1,366 (31)
6. Weert 1,924 (80)
7. Vaals 2,017 (101)
8. Gulpen-Wittem 2 ,368 (138)
9. Maasgouw 1,996 (143)
10. Maastricht 2,614 (152)

11. Echt-Susteren 2,442 (156)
12. Horst aan de Maas 2,832 (202)
13. Mook en Middelaar 2.636 (206)
14. Venlo 3,091 (228)
15. Peel and Maas 2,568 (232)
16. Bergen (L.) 2 ,622 (237)
17. Leudal 4,005 (243)
18. Heerlen 3,477 (245)
19. Simpelveld 5,239 (258)
20. Kerkrade 11,361 (263)

21. Beek 5,292 (271)
22. Landgraaf 5,323 (290)
23. Gennep 4,259 (291)
24. Sittard-Geleen 3,823 (295)
25. Stein 4,975 (305)
26. Roerdalen 4,116 (309)
27. Brunssum 5,534 (315)
28. Beekdaelen 5,152 (325)
29. Meerssen 12,950 (342)
30. Eijsden-Margraten 18,611 (343)

31. Voerendaal no toilets (349)

Room for improvement

On a national level, the municipality of Roermond with 719 points is in a nice 8th position of the total of 352 municipalities in the Netherlands. Unfortunately for Roermond, they dropped 1 position from 7 to 8. With a few simple steps, it is possible for this municipality to end up even higher on the national ranking in the coming year. There are more than enough feasible opportunities for all municipalities to become more toilet-friendly and therefore not only more inclusive, but also more hospitable.

For example:
1. Make the toilets of municipal locations available to passers-by.
2. Placing public (seasonal) toilets at busy locations.
3. Asking local businesses if their toilets can be made available to passers-by.
4. Making toilets clearly findable by becoming a partner of HogeNood and registering toilets and keeping track of dates in the HogeNood CMS, placing signs at
that lead to the toilet and placing stickers at toilet locations themselves for extra indication.
5. Maintaining a sustainable toilet policy so that not only now but also in the future, sufficient hygienic toilets are ensured within the
municipality.

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

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The complete ranking of toilet-friendly municipalities of the Netherlands 2021

For those of you who would like to find out where your own municipality has ended up, we have provided the complete ranking of all 352 for World Toilet Day 2021 as an interesting article. Here you can read how the list came about and how many points each municipality managed to achieve in 2021. There is also a map showing the proximity of all the toilets registered in the HogeNood app.

Monthly updates on each province via the newsletter

From now on, we will be publishing a monthly article focusing on one of our 12 provinces. Do you want to be the first to know about the most toilet-friendly municipality of each province? Then subscribe to the newsletter at the bottom of this article. That way you can be sure
that you will receive the newest list in your inbox as soon as it is put online!

Note: The dates used in this article are a snapshot of World Toilet Day 2021, it is possible that changes have occurred in the meantime.

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