Friday 19 November 2021
Today is World Toilet Day. On this day the importance of good sanitation and access to clean and safe toilets for all is highlighted. It is also the day when we traditionally announce the toilet-friendly municipality of the Netherlands together with the MLDS and the Toilet Alliance. This is already the sixth year in a row that we are proud to present it to you.
The toilet-friendly municipality of the year 2021 is Municipality of Druten!
The fact that Druten is the most toilet-friendly municipality in the Netherlands is not a coincidence. In order to determine which municipality may bear this honourable title, an annual ranking is made of all (352) municipalities in the Netherlands. This list of rankings is not made at random. In order to give a fair result, a point system is used that is drawn up in advance. The number of points awarded to a municipality depends on the following indicators:
1. Density - The number of inhabitants divided by the number of toilets (max. 300 points)
2. Partner - Is the municipality a partner of HogeNood (0 or 50 points)
3. Facilities - The facilities per toilet location. The more people the toilet is suitable for the higher the number of points (max. 300 points)
4. Proximity - The 500 metre standard, where one toilet is in close proximity to another (max. 150 points)
5. Public - The % of toilets of the total that are public compared to open (max. 100 points)
6. Policy - The policy of the municipality. Were questions asked, was a motion passed, is there an active policy? (max. 100 points)
With a total of 751 points in the Municipality of Druten managed to keep first place in the ranking, closely followed by municipality of Losser who manages to maintain an honourable second place with no less than 746 points. A new entrant in the top three is municipality of Utrechtwho, with 744 points, rises from fifth to third place. Last year the third place was occupied by Municipality of Rotterdam who this year, with 731 points, has slightly dropped back to, still, a beautiful fifth place in the rankings.
Unfortunately, there are also a number of municipalities that have not fared so well up to now. There are five municipalities which, with zero points, are at the bottom of the list. Unfortunately they have not yet taken any action to make their municipality toilet-friendly. The least successful municipalities are:
For those of you who want to find out where your own municipality has ended up, we have put the complete ranking of all 352 municipalities online. The order is from high to low, so you will find the municipality with the highest number of points obtained at the top and the least toilet-friendly municipalities at the bottom. This year we also have an overview of the municipalities per province and like last year we present the map showing the proximity of all toilets registered in the HogeNood app.
Where previously we only included the 50 largest municipalities (in terms of population) in the ranking, since the anniversary year 2020 we have included all municipalities in the Netherlands in our comparison. Would you like to know more about the results of the year 2020 and draw your own comparisons? Read the compilation of the 2020 ranking or the Top 3 toilet-friendly municipalities 2020.
