In almost every street under every bridge in Egypt there is the stench of urine. People find traces of it on the walls of the streets and in every unilluminated corner where there is an abandoned building. The country's lack of proper public toilets was one of the reasons why Egypt lost out in the competition to organise the football World Cup in 2010. Sohair Amin, a civil servant, believes that what drives people away from the existing public facilities is their lack of cleanliness. “The public must be reassured that these facilities are clean enough to use. When I am downtown with my children, I am unable to use the public toilets because of the lack of cleanliness. The new electronic toilets need better maintenance as well, as people do not know how to use them.” Rania Abdel-Fattah, 27, believes the problem may be one of attitude. “Cleanliness begins with the individual. I used to go downtown sometimes with my friends, but things have now become unbearable. The smell is so bad that I sometimes feel sick when I walk in the streets, and I wait for friends in sunny areas so that I don't have to stand too close to the dank walls.” Some people refuse to pay the small fee to use the electronic toilets, she said, while others try to break them. According to psychologist Ali Suleiman, behaviour in the streets is related to the culture of a given society. “Since Egyptian society has long been an agricultural society, people take liberties that have nothing to do with ethics but have more to do with the random behaviour they are used to. In the countryside, waste can be disposed of anywhere, something that is clearly not the case in cities.” “However, Egypt's cities do not have proper facilities, and many people, coming from the countryside, lack awareness of proper modes of behaviour in the city. Some may even take advantage of the city's anonymity, thinking that no one knows me here so I can do what I like. People have tried to solve the problem by letting the public use the toilets in mosques, but not that many mosques have public toilets.” Two types of behaviour could explain the habit, indulged in by some people, of simply using the street as a toilet, Suleiman said. One is sickness or old age, and this can be excused. However, the other reason, which Suleiman said was linked to a desire simply to behave in a headstrong way, is less easily excusable. In Japan, Qatar, and Korea, there are now electronic toilets in almost every street, and perhaps in an attempt to emulate these countries the then governor of Cairo, Abdel-Azim Wazir, announced in 2006 that 15 electronic toilets, or al-hammamat al-zakeya, would be installed in four districts of Cairo especially in touristic and highly populated areas. These toilets are Egyptian products manufactured by the Arab Organisation for Industrialisation and a private computer company. They are divided by sex, and they can be opened with an electronic card or coin. After use, they close automatically and clean themselves. Abdel-Sadek Abdel-Rahim, chairman of the Arab Organisation for Industrialisation, recounts the details. “We were asked by the former governor of Cairo to make these toilets and we started with seven. Then we signed a contract with the governorate to produce 64 and made 32, but the rest of the order was cancelled. We produced 34 for the Urban Communities Authority, which it installed in the new cities of Sherouk and 6 October city. Another company was responsible for maintenance, but the contract was cancelled by the governorate and now maintenance has become a problem.” “The problem lies in how people use the toilets,” Abdel-Rahim said. “Many of the coins used jam the mechanisms, and as a result it is very important that a company be found that can properly maintain these facilities. We have not stopped producing them, on the other hand, and we are currently working on adapting them for the railways.” According to statistics from the Arab Organisation for Industrialisation, in 2007 36 of the new toilets were installed in the Cairo governorate, with a further 40 later being installed, and three were installed in Giza and 10 in Port Said. In 2008, seven were produced for project-management purposes and a further 11 for private companies. In 2009, one was installed in Hurghada. Montasser Midra, chairman of the production sector of the Arab Organisation for Industrialisation, added that “the last order was for seven toilets to be installed in touristic areas in Al-Haram this April. We have not stopped producing these toilets, but we work according to the needs of clients. We are ready to produce more for anyone who needs them. We will repair minor disorders in the toilets after they are distributed, but after that the client is responsible for maintenance,” he said. Khaled Mustafa, spokesman for the Cairo governorate, said the problem with these toilets lay in a lack of security. “There have been cases of robbery related to these facilities. Equipment has been stolen, and some people have vandalised them.” Other problems are the small sums of money the toilets raise for the governorate, averaging just LE400 per month even as they cost around LE1,700 to maintain. However, Mustafa believes a solution to the problem is imminent. “The governor is considering leasing advertising space on the toilets, which will allow the authorities to pay guards a decent salary. Were this to take place, we could arrange for more guards and we could maintain the toilets more efficiently.” “The government should appoint more staff to attend to the toilets and maybe they should work in shifts,” Amin said, with Abdel-Fattah adding that “the only solution is to move the street vendors as they are the ones responsible for this mess.” Abdel-Rahim said that the solution lay in more careful study. “It is up to the authorities to determine needs, to consider which areas are in need of toilets, and once they have done this we are ready to produce them.” Midra said that the problem lay in the way people used the facilities. “If people used the toilets the way they are supposed to by reading the instructions before they use them, the toilets would last longer,” he said. Suleiman said that more emphasis should be placed on basic human needs. “If people felt more respected, these types of problem would disappear. There needs to be a campaign to raise people's awareness, and practical solutions should be found to change people's behaviour.”
