Sharjah: Sharjah Municipality has launched an upgraded public toilet that will soon be installed in all public areas within the next three months to rectify a shortage of these facilities.
The upgraded, airconditioned public toilet was opened at Al Jubail area near the fish market on Wednesday.
"There are older toilets but it seems that nobody uses them," said Hassan Al Taffaq, Head of Environmental Section at Sharjah Municipality.
"With these upgraded toilets, we hope the residents will be encouraged to use them and that there will be no need to go to restaurants and cafeterias anymore."
The toilet was opened on a trial basis in cooperation with Sweden-based DANFO.
"Once we complete testing the toilet, we will then decide how many the city needs and where they will be distributed," he said, noting that the priority will be along the public beach.
"They will first be installed in Khalid Lagoon and Buheira corniche, and later on will be introduced in Al Rolla and all public parks."
The automatic toilet cleans and disinfects itself after every use, and maintains a very high degree of hygiene round the clock.
The toilet can be used by inserting a Dh1 coin and allows a maximum of 20 minutes use per payment.
