 | |
| Division | |
| Founded | 2011 |
| Founder | Christian Pagh |
| Headquarters | Copenhagen, Denmark |
| Products | Urinals |
| Website | peebetter.dk |
Pollee is a mobile female urinal, designed by Nuala Collins, Christian Pagh and Sara Nanna and produced by the Danish design bureau UIWE. It is specifically designed to be used at public events such as concerts or music festivals.
In March 2011, the organizers of the Denmark Roskilde Festival, one of the biggest music festivals in Europe, initiated a conference ("The urination summit") titled "Backstage: Piss-Off" to discuss the problems of public sanitation during the festival. [1] The organizers were increasingly confronted with "wild peeing", because the toilet and urinal facilities did not keep up with the growing demand:
"We had really long toilet queues, where it was often women who stood and waited. This meant that many girls ended up using the fence to urinate." — Signe Brink Pedersen, project manager at Roskilde Festival [2]
The Roskilde committee initiated a campaign aimed at "developing human solutions to peeing in public space — for both sexes." [2] The Copenhagen-based UIWE design bureau took part and developed Pollee — an open-air, touch-free urinal for girls as an alternative to the crowded and often unhygienic portable toilets.
The idea behind Pollee was to provide for women an easy and convenient urination alternative to portable toilets. The plan was to reduce the queues in front of the portable toilets:
"Our drive is that Pollee becomes a real queue-killer that enables girls to get peeing over and done with quickly, so they can get on with the more fun and important things. Queuing is such a waste of life!" — UIWE [3]
Together with the designers Sara Nanna and Nuala Collins, three prototypes were developed. [4] All prototypes had, to varying degrees, plastic walls for privacy built around four triangular bowls. The urinal is used in a semi-squat position. Pollee is arranged in a crosswise style, allowing four women to urinate simultaneously. Handholds are attached to the walls, that help users to keep a comfortable position. [5]
Three final versions of the Pollee were first introduced at the Roskilde Festival 2011. The introduction was regarded to be successful; the urinal was well received, with many women using it:
"Quite frankly: the girls' response at the festival was overwhelming. We have talked to hundreds of girls and although we received ideas for improvement, the overall message was: We use it and we love it!" — Christian Pagh [6]
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Urination is the release of urine from the urinary bladder through the urethra to the outside of the body. It is the urinary system's form of excretion. It is also known medically as micturition, voiding, uresis, or, rarely, emiction, and known colloquially by various names including peeing, weeing, and pissing.
The Roskilde Festival is a Danish music festival held annually south of Roskilde. It is one of the largest music festivals in Europe and the largest in Northern Europe. It was created in 1971 by two high school students, Mogens Sandfær and Jesper Switzer Møller, and promoter Carl Fischer. In 1972, the festival was taken over by the Roskilde Foundation, which has since run the festival as a non-profit organization for development and support of music, culture and humanism. In 2014, the Roskilde Foundation provided festival participants with the opportunity to nominate and vote upon which organizations should receive funds raised by the festival.
Urinetown: The Musical is a satirical comedy musical that premiered in 2001, with music by Mark Hollmann, lyrics by Hollmann and Greg Kotis, and book by Kotis. It satirizes the legal system, capitalism, social irresponsibility, populism, bureaucracy, corporate mismanagement, and municipal politics. The show also parodies musicals such as The Threepenny Opera, The Cradle Will Rock and Les Misérables, and the Broadway musical itself as a form.
A urinal is a sanitary plumbing fixture for urination only. Urinals are often provided in public toilets for male users in Western countries. They are usually used in a standing position. Urinals can be with manual flushing, automatic flushing, or without flushing, as is the case for waterless urinals. They can be arranged as single sanitary fixtures or in a trough design without privacy walls. Urinals designed for females also exist but are rare. It is possible for females to use male urinals with a female urination device.
A public toilet is a room or small building with toilets and sinks that does not belong to a particular household. Rather, the toilet is available for use by the general public, customers, travellers, employees of a business, school pupils, prisoners etc. Public toilets are commonly separated into male and female facilities, although some are unisex, especially for small or single-occupancy public toilets. Increasingly, public toilets are accessible to people with disabilities. Public toilets are known by many other names depending on the country. Examples are: restroom, bathroom, men's room, women's room in the US, washroom in Canada, and toilets, lavatories, water closet (W.C.), ladies and gents in Europe. In some parts of the world, they are referred to as the loo.
A chemical toilet collects human excreta in a holding tank and uses chemicals to minimize odors. These toilets are usually, but not always, self-contained and movable. A chemical toilet is structured around a relatively small tank, which needs to be emptied frequently. It is not connected to a hole in the ground, nor to a septic tank, nor is it plumbed into a municipal system leading to a sewage treatment plant. When the tank is emptied, the contents are usually pumped into a sanitary sewer or directly to a treatment plant.
A pay toilet is a public toilet that requires the user to pay. It may be street furniture or be inside a building, e.g. a shopping mall, department store, or railway station. The reason for charging money is usually for the maintenance of the equipment. Paying to use a toilet can be traced back almost 2000 years, to the first century AD.
Sanisette is a registered trademark for a self-contained, self-cleaning, unisex, public toilet pioneered by the French company JCDecaux. These toilets are a common sight in several major cities of the world, but they are perhaps most closely associated with the city of Paris, where they are ubiquitous. In the United Kingdom they are known informally as "Superloos".
Potty parity is equal or equitable provision of public toilet facilities for females and males within a public space.
The iLoo was a cancelled Microsoft project to develop a Wi-Fi Internet-enabled portable toilet. The iLoo, which was to debut at British summer festivals, was described as being a portable toilet with wireless broadband Internet, an adjustable plasma screen, a membrane wireless keyboard, a six-channel speaker system, and toilet paper embossed with popular web site addresses. The iLoo was also to have an extra screen and keyboard on the outside, and was to be guarded. It was intended as the next in a series of successful initiatives by MSN UK which sought to introduce the internet in unusual locations, including MSN Street, MSN Park Bench and MSN Deckchair.
The term unisex public toilets, also called gender-inclusive, gender-neutral and mixed-sex or all-gender toilets, bathrooms or restrooms, or just toilets, refers to public toilets that are not separated by gender or sex. Unisex public toilets can benefit a range of people with or without special needs. They are also valuable for parents who need to help their infant or young child with using the toilet. While the push for gender neutral bathrooms benefits a number of different demographics, it is driven by the transgender community to combat harassment and violence against these populations.
A female urination device, female urination aid, or stand-to-pee device (STP) is a device which aids a female or a trans man to urinate while standing upright. Variations include basic disposable funnels to more elaborate reusable designs. Female urination devices have increased in popularity since the 1990s. They are used for outdoor pursuits, and for medical reasons.
A female urinal is a urinal designed for the anatomy of women, to allow ease of use by women and girls. Different models enable urination in standing, semi-squatting, or squatting postures, always without direct bodily contact with the urinal. Sitting models also exist, but with direct bodily contact with the urinal.
A toilet is a piece of sanitary hardware used for the collection or disposal of human urine and feces. Toilets can be with or without flushing water. They can be set up for a sitting posture or for a squatting posture. Flush toilets are usually connected to a sewer system in urban areas and to septic tanks in isolated areas. Dry toilets are connected to a pit, removable container, composting chamber, or other storage and treatment device. Toilets are commonly made of ceramic (porcelain), concrete, plastic, or wood.
Urine diversion, also called urine separation or source separation, refers to the separate collection of human urine and feces at the point of their production, i.e. at the toilet or urinal. Separation of urine from feces allows human waste to be treated separately and used as a potential resource. Applications are typically found where connection to a sewer-based sanitation system is not available or areas where water supplies are limited.
An interactive urinal is a device that allows users to play video games or control interactive displays while urinating. Several designs have been produced to date, usually comprising a urinal fitted with a pressure sensor to measure the strength and position of the urine flow and an LCD screen mounted above the urinal to provide animated graphics.
A pissoir is a French invention common in Europe that provides a urinal in public space with a lightweight structure. The availability of pissoirs is likely to reduce urination onto buildings, sidewalks, or streets. They can be freestanding and without screening, with partial screening, or fully enclosed.
Mumtaz Shaikh is a women's rights activist from India who launched a successful campaign for equal access to public toilets in Mumbai. She was selected by the BBC in 2015 as one of its inspirational 100 Women campaign.
Anti urination devices were a form of hostile architecture installed in Norwich and the surrounding area in the late 19th century to discourage public urination. The overcrowded and narrow streets of the city centre and a lack of public toilets led to men urinating against the side of buildings, but the installation of new public urinals to address the issue was delayed by disputes over where they were to be sited. Anti urination devices were built in places which suffered particular problems with public urination, and were intended to discourage men from urinating at that spot. Most were built of sloped or curved stone, flint or concrete, and were shaped such that anyone attempting to urinate against the wall would need to stand well away from the wall in public view, hopefully discouraging them from doing so. The slope of the structure meant that should anyone still attempt to urinate against it, the stream of urine would be deflected back onto their feet and legs. A few instead consisted of a spiked metal bar positioned across a corner at the height of a typical man's groin, and were intended to dissuade men from approaching the corner with their genitals exposed.
The pee curl is a urinal that is placed in multiple different locations in centre of Amsterdam as a public toilet. The design was made in the end of the 19th century from the Dienst der Publieke Werken.