Remember the day when your shiny brand new portable toilets arrived? That was an exciting time. Fresh inventory, an action plan, and the wide-open rental market waiting for you. Now, because the business you’ve built has been good, you have some battered and worn portable toilet units, tanks, plastics, and possibly other inventory that is aging out. Fortunately, there are ways to capitalize on sales and recycling opportunities and make the most of retired rental items you want to discard.
Recycling Your Portable Toilet Units
Recycling porta potty units is the process of converting damaged or old plastic toilet units into new ones, or into other products that can be constructed from the same high-density polyethylene (HDPE). Some portable toilet manufacturers may recycle your old HDPE units and reuse the plastic to produce new toilet units or other sanitation items. Or, like many porta potty rental services, you may decide to resell your used porta potties for a variety of applications, or choose other options for discarding unwanted units.
When It’s Time to Say Goodbye to Old Porta Potty Units
It will become clear enough that it’s time to retire an old portable toilet unit if you discover interior or exterior structural damage, moving parts that are no longer functioning properly, or a persistent bad odor even after cleaning. Or, if there is just so much wear from use over the years that the unit looks unsanitary or abused, it’s probably time to recycle the materials. Indicators that it’s time to replace a porta potty can include:
- Damaged Structure: If the unit has cracks, fine fractures, holes in the walls, roof, toilet base, floor, door, waste tank, sink, or exterior surface, it is no longer sanitary or safe.
- Broken Parts: Non-functioning pumps, vents, or doors, or a badly damaged wall, roof, floor, toilet seat, or other essential part can make the portable unit unsafe and usable.
- Major Wear: Moving portable toilet units from place to place through the years, continuous use at customers’ busy sites, etc., causes extreme and irreparable wear.
- Weakened Plastic: Old porta potties that have been long exposed to moving, sunlight, weather, body weight, chemical cleaning, etc., can become weak and prone to cracking.
- Persistent Odor: If the unit emits an odor that thorough cleaning does not eliminate, the vent system may no longer work, or the oxidized structure may have absorbed waste particulate.
FIRST: Waste Disposal Prior to Recycling a Porta Potty
Recycling the plastic portable toilet unit is one task. Disposing of the waste inside is another. Before you recycle a used portable toilet unit, it must be emptied and all residual waste material must be cleared from it:
Vacuum Waste Removal: Waste is removed from the tanks and the tank is cleaned.
Wastewater Dumping: The wastewater is hauled to an authorized disposal location.
Wastewater Treatment: The waste is delivered to an approved treatment facility.
Ways to Recycle or Repurpose Porta Potty Units
Eventually, even the best portable toilet parts wear out and the units begin to require excessively frequent repairs in order to keep providing safe and sanitary service for users. When that happens, it’s time to replace the aging inventory. There are various options for proper disposal of retired toilet units:
Recycling Facilities for Plastics
The heavy-duty plastics of old porta potties can be recycled for use in building new industrial-grade products. For example, new portable toilets, handwashing stations, other sanitation equipment, plastic lumber, roadway construction barriers, fencing, picnic tables, park benches, outdoor furniture, and many other things.
Environmental Recyclers
Connect with facilities that handle recycling of HDPE and/or other heavy-duty plastics, as applicable. Or, contact the manufacturer of your portable units to ask if they offer a program for taking back used units. Or, search for a recycler that specifically handles environmentally safe management of plastic products that have reached the end of their usable life.
Salvage Parts
Experienced portable toilet rental company managers frequently dismantle retired units and reuse components that can be salvaged. For example, doors, tanks, seat assemblies, vents, hinges, TP dispensers, cables, brackets, and other parts may be reusable for maintaining units that are still in operation.
Resell Retired Porta Potty Units
There are numerous good uses for retired but functional porta potty units. For example, they may be sold for personal use at campsites, boat docks, backyards, home remodeling, workshop, farming, family events, or other non-commercial applications.
Donate Old Units
If you have no luck selling your old units or don’t want to embark on that mission, you can simply donate the rental units that are still in good enough condition to benefit people. The porta potties can be given to non-profit organizations for them to reuse in a wide range of applications. (You may be entitled to a tax write off. Check with your CPA.)
Dumping Old Units
If you must manage the removal of no longer usable portable toilet units and are unable to find a readily available better alternative, locate a facility that accepts industrial or commercial construction waste and arrange to deliver it for disposal.
Out With the Old – In With the New
When it’s time to say goodbye to a porta potty that has served your business well for a long time, especially if it’s a part of your original stock, it may unexpectedly be a slightly sentimental moment. But, when it’s time to cycle it out of your inventory, that means it’s also time to bring in some fresh new replacement units. That’s always exciting, and it probably means a quality upgrade in new model design. And that marks another milestone moment for your business. Congratulations!