Bangkok's Toilets of the Year Awards

Think more graciously when next you open that special door - it might be an award-winner, for Bangkok City Hall has just announced its annual Toilets of the Year Award for 2014.

The toilets at Koh Phaya Thai at Victory Monument, win in the off-road facilities. (Photo by Patipat Junthong)

There were 14 categories of public facilities, based on international criteria. But the hardest contest to judge was for the dirtiest, according to Wasuthep Boonchoo, of the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration's Hygiene Office.

If the complaints the BMA has received are any guide, virtually any toilet at any refuelling station could easily win the title as it was difficult to keep them clean because of heavy use, he said.

Unfortunately, there is no data to verify whether some 4,000 public toilets in Bangkok meet standards even though information has been collected over the past two years.

"We found the main problems with Bangkok toilets are lack of hand soap, dirty door knobs and inadequate toilet spray guns," he said.   

Wanthanee Wattana, director of the BMA's Hygiene Office, said the awards were based on hygiene, accessability and safety.

Ninety-nine operators nominated their toilets for this year's competition. But there was no winner in the government agency, public parks and fresh markets categories, she said.

The Good Toilets Award went to Home Product Center Plc and Siam Makro Plc.

The winners of the awards, which have been held since 2009, will be nominated for the national toilet contest held by the Public Health Ministry every year.

Bangkok winners usually win at the national level as well, Ms Wanthanee said, citing Terminal 21, Promenade, Suan Luang Rama IX Park and Wat Makut as examples.      

BMA Toilet of the Year Awards 2014