Portable toilets on high-rise construction: Way worse than renovators ever see?

Last week, Alec Caldwell wrote a post about the sorry state of portable toilets on home building and renovation sites. Our frequent poster, Questo, replied to us that, on some high-rise construction sites, things can get a hell of a lot worse than we usually see in the renovation business…

“Thanks, Alec, for your article on portable toilets in construction. I worked on high-rise building construction as a journeyman electrician, laying out PVC flex tube for electrical, telephones and other needs on a floor-by-floor basis. The last building I worked was at Front and Jarvis, Toronto, the “Chinese towers.” Me and two Italian electricians quit working when we got up to the 14th floor because of the issues with sanitation. In the heat, the smell of pot, shit, urine and cigarettes was horrible. Our company manager just told us we could handle it. When one of us asked to came down to the ground floor to use the portables there – less hot, and more to choose from – we were met with name calling. It reached the point where we had to do what we had to do: We quit. This sort of (policy) for (restricting access to) portable toilets should be prohibited under the Ontario Health and Safety Act. We had tried (to make that happen) in 2002, but nobody cared – it fell on deaf hears including the unions, too. We argued that a small trailer with 10 or more washrooms in satisfactory condition – and dally inspections – should be provided at ground level. In my view, as far as the Ontario government goes on this issue, ignorance was bliss on their part, back then, and maybe it remains so now.”