Tips for More Sustainable Customer Bathrooms
Customer bathrooms are a must have if you are operating a business that deals with customers face to face. Whether you run a store, restaurant, or an office building where your customers come to visit you regularly, bathrooms on-site that they can use are a basic necessity. You just never know when you are going to need to go, and there’s nothing worse than being somewhere that doesn’t have a bathroom for you to use. As a business owner you know that something simple like offering a bathroom for customers will help with the impression that your brand makes, but how can you make them more sustainable? Bathrooms tend to use a lot of energy and water, especially if customers are using them regularly. But the good news is that you can implement a variety of different strategies to make your customer bathrooms greener.
Recycled Products
First of all, it’s a good idea to shop around for recycled products that you can use for essentials in the customer bathroom. For example, sanitary bin services from Woosh are made from recycled materials. Not only that but Woosh will collect the bins from your premises and ensure that all the sanitary waste they collect is incinerated for energy rather than going to landfill. The bins themselves are hygienic and easier to use compared to regular sanitary bins, so your customers will definitely be impressed.
Use Water Saving Toilets
Toilets are a primary source of water use and there’s no getting away from the fact that we need water to flush the waste away after using the toilet. However, many toilets are using more water than they actually need to achieve this. When your business offers customer bathrooms, the toilets are going to be being flushed all the time, so installing water saving toilets can be a great way to ensure hygiene while only using the minimum amount of water needed to flush, for a more sustainable bathroom that will save your business money on its water bill too.
Limit Toilet Paper
When you offer a bathroom to your customers then you are going to need to stock it regularly with supplies like toilet paper. However, when using customer bathrooms, some people may use much more toilet paper than they would at home, simply because it’s not theirs to pay for. Using more toilet paper than necessary is not only wasteful, but it’s also not great for the planet either. Along with getting toilet paper that is made using recycled materials, you may also want to consider installing toilet paper dispensers that limit the amount to help customers be more mindful of how much they are using and encourage them to use less.
Energy Saving Lightbulbs
Since customers are probably not going to be using the bathroom in your business all the time, it can be a drain on your electricity to have the light switched on in there all day long. Instead, it might be worth looking into motion-activated, energy saving lightbulbs. With these, the light will switch on when a customer opens the door to use the bathroom, and then automatically switch off once they have finished and leave if there is nobody else using the facilities. This way, you can make sure that the electricity use in your bathroom is limited by only having the lights switched on when they are needed.
Automatic Taps
Handwashing is an important part of using the bathroom so you will need to provide sinks, taps, and handwash for your customers to use on their way out. However, taps can be left running easily by accident and this can not only waste a lot of water and energy but could also lead to leaks and other problems with the commercial building. Today, more and more customer bathrooms are using innovative motion-sensor taps that start running when you put your hands under them before automatically shutting off after a set period of time. Since there is no need to touch the tap to activate it, they are also a much more hygienic option for customers.
Eco-Friendly Cleaning Products
Last but not least, regular cleaning of the customer bathrooms is important for hygiene purposes and to ensure that customers have a good experience when using your facilities. However, many commercial cleaning products are not always the best choice for the environment, so it may be worth looking into eco-friendlier cleaning solutions and tools instead. Or, if you hire a cleaning firm to take care of these jobs for you, find out about the products that they use and look for a company that focuses on environmentally-friendly cleaning practices.
Customer bathrooms are a necessity for many businesses, but they can be a drain on resources and the environment. Keep these tips in mind for more sustainability in your business’s customer bathroom.