A central London district famous for its nightlife is trying a new way to tackle the constant problem of public urination: so-called anti-pee paint.
Soho is a dense area of bars, restaurants, theatres and other entertainment venues as well as homes. Officials there are treating walls at nearly a dozen problem sites with the special spray-on liquid.
The industrial strength “surface protection” creates a transparent water-repellent layer that splashes back urine when it hits the paint.
Westminster City Council launched the plan following complaints from some of Soho’s approximately 3,000 residents, as well as workers and business operators.
“Obviously, pee isn’t very pleasant, and our residents are very upset,” said local councillor Aicha Less. “They step out their front door in the morning and you just get the stench of urine,” she added, saying locals should be “entitled to live in a clean, safe environment”.
The council learned about the anti-pee paint after it was previously used by another local authority and in Germany. Authorities are aiming to treat walls at 10 Soho hotspots. Contractors erect signs at the sites saying they have been sprayed and the message: “This wall is not a urinal.”
Westminster spends nearly £1 million (HK$9.46 million) annually on street cleaning, which includes cleaning peed-on side streets. It hopes this new strategy will lower that cost. “We’ll see what impact it makes in, say, six months’ time and if there is less of a stench in the air,” said Less.
Westminster City Council is also looking at handing out more fines for public urination, a criminal offence that could cost offenders £50 or £80.
Public urination can be an issue in many urban areas with a busy nightlife, but locals believe Soho is especially prone to the problem. The 0.25 square mile (0.6 sq km) district in the heart of the UK capital boasts more than 400 premises licensed to sell alcohol, around a quarter of them late into the night, according to local resident Tim Lord.
But it also had a shrinking number of permanent public toilets, said Lord, who chairs the Soho Society community group. The area’s two remaining underground toilets closed during the pandemic and have yet to reopen.
“So throughout the night, you could have thousands of people who’ve been drinking, and certainly in the summer with the closed toilets, Soho smelled,” said Lord.
But Lord argued the declining number of permanent public toilets in Soho was “odd” given its nightlife. This was a problem in need of reversing, he added. “You don’t have to travel very far in Europe or North America and you’ll find perfectly clean, well-run public toilets,” he said.
“Soho is a really important historical part of London that was laid out in the 1650s ... We just wish our local council took care of it – it’s a great place to live and a place that should be clean.”
Agence-France Presse
The Soho area of London is popular for its nightlife. Photo: Shutterstock
What superhydrophobic properties exist in nature?
While the anti-pee paint is a brilliant invention, its inventors probably took notes from Mother Nature.
Small insects and plants such as lotus leaves have superhydrophobic surfaces. These water-repellent coatings are made up of many tiny needles that serve as shields to keep them safe from the impact of water droplets on rainy days.
When water lands on these insects and plants, the tightly packed needles hold up the droplets and transfer them among the needles, causing the water to slide off the surface.
At the same time, the needles break the water droplets into smaller pieces to reduce the damage caused by their impact.
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