By law, you must ensure your employees have access to a restroom. This means that if you are having the restrooms in your office building renovated, employee a construction crew at a site where no bathrooms are available, or if you employee farmworkers who work outside with no bathrooms, you must provide your employees with a portable restroom. Many employers do not realize that there are OSHA requirements when it comes to portable restrooms and their employees, and if you fail to meet these requirements, you can be subject to a fine. Here is some information every employer should know about portable restrooms. 

The Number of Portable Restrooms You Need to Have Available

The number of portable restrooms that you need to have available will vary based on the number of employees you have. If you 20 or less employees, you must supply them with at least one restroom. If you have over 20 employees, but less than 200 employees, you must supply one toilet and one urinal for every 40 employees. If you have over 200 employees at a job site, you will need at least one toilet and urinal for every 50 employees. It is important to note that this is the minimum OSHA requirement. Many employers supply more toilets for their employees. If there is a line to use the restroom, it can slow down productivity, so ensuring your employees can quickly use the restroom when needed helps you and your employees. 

Accessibility to Portable Restrooms

Another OSHA requirement is that employees have reasonable access to restrooms when they are working. While the rules may vary slightly from industry to industry, typically OSHA feels that having a restroom that an employee can get to in less than 10 minutes or under a quarter of a mile is reasonable. If you have employees working in a field, you cannot have a portable toilet in the field with them. Likewise, employees working on a large construction site may not have a bathroom close by. As such, you need to be able to drive your employees to the restroom as needed or ensure they can easily walk to the restroom. Take the time to think about the positioning of the bathrooms and how accessible they are for employees. In some cases, you may need extra bathrooms to ensure all of your employees have reasonable access to portable restrooms. 

Hygiene After Using a Portable Restroom

Finally, OSHA has requirements for handwashing after using a portable restroom. You must have antibacterial soap and clean water for employees to wash their hands in after using the restroom. You must also provide your employees with a way to dry their hands, including paper towels or an air dryer. As such, when you are looking for portable restrooms, you may need to also look at portable handwashing stations or portable restrooms that have sinks and hand drying stations in them as well. 

Here at The Texas Loo, we want to ensure that you meet OSHA requirements for your employees. We can help you determine the best portable restrooms for your employees and supply them to the job site. Reach out to us today to learn more or to reserve your portable restrooms.