Most Men's Public Bathrooms in South Africa Weren't Built for this

A practical, and largely invisible, gap in South African public bathroom design still affects a significant number of men.

By Nuwkem Hygiene, makers of the Ticra™ washroom range

www.nuwkem.co.za

When a man enters a public toilet cubicle in South Africa, he will almost never find anywhere to dispose of a continence pad, shield or stoma product. Women have had this handled for decades. Men, for the most part, have not. The arrangement is so familiar that it rarely draws comment. Yet it rests on an assumption the evidence no longer supports.

Men also need to dispose of incontinence pads, shields, stoma products and other medical waste. The need is medically documented and statistically significant. Some men experience it temporarily after prostate surgery while still working and travelling. Others manage it longer term. In either case, the facilities provided for them rarely account for it.

What follows is not a call for special treatment. It is a case for recognising a practical gap in how we design washrooms, and for addressing it according to the evidence.

The need is larger than we tend to assume

Male urinary incontinence rises steadily with age. Community studies put the figure at roughly 5 percent for men aged 19 to 44, about 11 percent between 45 and 64, and around 21 percent beyond 65. Daily incontinence is less frequent but still material, reported between 2 and 11 percent in older men. A 2022 meta-analysis of 222 studies covering more than 1.69 million people found moderate-to-severe lower urinary tract symptoms in 35.2 percent of men. Overactive bladder sits in a similar range, with pooled estimates of 12 to 16 percent across recent systematic reviews.

Prostate surgery brings the issue into sharper focus. Radical prostatectomy remains a standard treatment for localised prostate cancer. Contemporary patient-reported series show that a substantial minority of men are still using pads a year later. Many more need them in the weeks and months immediately after surgery, precisely when they are returning to work, travel and ordinary public life. The need is therefore not confined to elderly or chronically ill men. It includes working-age men managing a temporary but real medical requirement.

The absence of a bin does not mean the need does not exist.

The causes vary. Age, surgery, neurological conditions, medication and injury all contribute. The common factor is straightforward: a significant number of men will, at some point, need a discreet and hygienic way to dispose of a product inside a male cubicle.

What the regulations cover, and what they leave open

South African building rules require adequate sanitary facilities. SANS 10400-P sets out, in careful detail, how many toilet pans, urinals and washbasins a building must provide according to occupancy and the population of each sex. Those tables are thorough. Yet they say considerably less about what happens once a person is inside the cubicle and needs to dispose of a continence or medical product.

The practical outcome is an unspoken design assumption. Female washrooms are expected to handle sanitary waste, while male washrooms are designed as though equivalent waste 

does not arise. The medical evidence available to us today no longer supports that assumption. We have regulated the number of fixtures, but we have not yet asked whether every person using them can perform a basic hygiene task with dignity.

The cost of leaving the gap unaddressed

The consequences are practical. Population-based research in the United States found that men with overactive bladder reported 19 percent work productivity impairment while working, against 4 percent among men with no or minimal symptoms. Even after accounting for other factors, those men were 1.5 times more likely to be unemployed. People with continence symptoms also tend to take more days off work for medical reasons, including disability leave.

Local authorities that have introduced male sanitary bins describe a more immediate effect. Men stay home. They use accessible toilets as a workaround. They plan journeys around the certainty of a disposal option. Winchester City Council and Herefordshire Council installed bins in male public toilets for this reason, citing dignity and the risk of isolation. The absence of a simple facility becomes a barrier to ordinary participation.

Male sanitary disposal should not be treated as exceptional.

Others have already begun to close the gap

The solution is already being applied outside South Africa. The University of the West of England installed sanitary waste bins across 20 male toilets for incontinence pads, stoma items and other medical products. Morrisons completed a nationwide supermarket rollout in 2026 and became the first major retailer to meet the "Bog Standard" guidelines developed with Prostate Cancer UK. Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Service fitted 26 dedicated male incontinence bins across its sites, the first Welsh fire service to do so in a workforce that is more than 80 percent male.

These decisions were made by a university, a supermarket chain and a public-service employer. Not by hygiene companies. The question is no longer whether male sanitary disposal is possible. It is whether organisations are prepared to recognise the need and act on it.

Dignity as a facilities decision

Good facilities management starts with the people who actually use the space. A discreet disposal unit inside a male cubicle is a low-cost response to a documented medical need. It removes a practical obstacle for men managing products after surgery, illness or ageing. It also removes an avoidable reason to stay home.

At Nuwkem Hygiene, we spend our days thinking about what people require once they close a washroom door. It is becoming harder to justify limiting that thinking to one group of users. Male sanitary disposal should not be treated as exceptional. It should simply form part of designing a washroom for the people who use it.

We routinely ask whether a washroom has enough toilets, working soap dispensers and clean floors. We should also ask whether every person who uses it can manage basic hygiene with dignity.