Since the Feb 22 earthquake Christchurch has experienced numerous setbacks to the everyday functions we all take for granted. Having flushing toilets, showers that work and water that can be drunk straight out of tap are luxuries that 2/3 of the city don’t have. Even in one of the least affected areas we are still boiling water before drinking and following the age old rule of “if it’s yellow let it mellow, if it’s brown flush it down.”
The above has seen the Christchurch City Council create community shower, toilet and water sites, set to cater to those who have nothing. The photos attached are of the main community site in Hawke Street, New Brighton. This site is the busiest in town and can see hundreds of people a day, as much as all other sites combined. On Monday we replaced a Far Out Shower unit with one of our own, as Far Out needed their units back in the North Island. That has given us total domination of this site with a 40’ Shower Block, 3x3m loo block, 50KVA generator and the beautiful new fencing we shipped in from Onsite Australia.
There are a total of 5 community sites around the city all of which we have a majority of the gear in. Servicing of these units is covered by OCS Cleaning although we still maintain the holding tanks for all the loos and some of the shower units. In total there’s 33,000 litres of tanks space holding either grey water or waste. On a daily basis we would remove anywhere between 15,000 – 20,000 litres of waste in a 6000l pump truck rehired out of Palmeston North.
The public have responded really positively to these sites and, for a change, the happy loo-men get greeted with smiles and conversation rather than the usual stares of disapproval. It’s not a line of work that is usually appreciated so it’s nice to be complimented from time to time and even accept the odd batch of scones.