Imagine this scenario: you’re having a great time at a big outdoor event when all of a sudden you realize the porta potties are overflowing. The smell, the look, the potential health hazards—it’s all a disaster waiting to happen if it’s not taken care of right now. If you’ve ever been in a situation where you need to take care of a portable toilet, you understand how serious this is. You can’t ignore it. You have to take care of it because it’s important for the guests, for your employees, for the campers — you name it. So, what do you do? You need a simple, clean answer. That’s what we’re going to give you right here.

How to Take Care of Portable Toilet Porta potties, we all call them that affectionately. Wherever you might be lacking traditional facilities, portable toilets are essential. Nobody likes to empty them, but when you do it the right way, you help everybody stay clean and healthy. Over the years, we’ve supplied thousands of portable toilet globally, and we’ve seen the front end of that situation. It’s imperative to do it right; nobody tells you that. Let us show you how to empty a porta potty safely and correctly.

A Comprehensive Guide on How to Empty a Portable Toilet

How to Properly Empty a Portable Toilet Health concerns, in addition to the simple icky factor, come into play when emptying a portable toilet. Here’s a detailed, step-by-step guide to make sure you handle this dirty job well and with a minimum of health risks and environmental concern.

Prepare to Empty the Portable Toilet Before you begin, you must have the following:

Protective Clothing: Always wear gloves, goggles, and a mask when emptying a porta potty to protect yourself against splashes, fumes, or contact with the waste, which can be hazardous to your health.

Equipment: Gather a pump-out system or a vacuum system, hoses, and a portable waste tank or a container so you can move the waste from one location to another location in a sanitary, safe manner.

1. Assess Fullness: First, inspect your porta potty. Is it ready to empty? To tell, make sure the waste isn’t stuck and won’t back up into your house (that wouldn’t be good!). Also, the previous sign before that is all the liquid levels getting up close to the stopper or the liquid line. Because porta potties don’t have stops in them, they just fill up. You should take care of it before your liquid starts getting to about two-thirds of the porta potty’s capacity because nobody wants that to happen.
2. Connect the Pump: When you’re sure, hook up your pump hose up to your waste valve. Make sure it’s snug because you don’t want leaks when you’re in here, and it makes everything a lot safer.
3. Start Pumping: Turn on your pump. It’s going to transfer all the waste from your portable toilet over to your container. While you’re pumping, be careful. Pay attention because if you over pump, you can mess some stuff up or have some bad things happen.
4. Unhook and Cap: Once your portable toilet is empty, safely unhook your pump hose. Remember to cap off all your openings, not only for your portable toilet, but also for your waste tank so nothing leaks.
5. Move the Waste: Where you have all your waste needs to go to a disposal area. The only place to take porta-potty waste is to a place that’s certified to handle it. They’re called wastewater treatment facilities. Make sure you take it to a place that can receive that waste. Make sure you handle it according to the rules in the area you live in so you don’t break the law or wreck the environment.
6. Sanitize Your Unit: Cleaning your portable toilet thoroughly after emptying is just as important as emptying the porta potty. Scrub everything down and fire off some good commercial-grade disinfectant. Scrubbing stuff down helps the smell, and it also helps stop the bacteria from growing again.
7. Add Chemicals Back: Once you clean the toilet, make sure to add blue back into your holding tank. You want those chemicals back to help control the bacteria growth, keep it from smelling, and make it fresh again for the next person who uses it.
8. Re-supply: The last thing to do is make sure everything is filled up. Make sure you have toilet paper, hand sanitizer, and anything else you need.

There is a health hazard when you’re handling human waste. You need to pay attention to wear your protective gear and do everything the right way. Always put the waste in a place where they’re supposed to go. Don’t put it somewhere else. If not, you might end up with a ticket or, worse, damage the environment and create a bunch of health problems. If you don’t have the stuff or are not sure, contact a professional waste management company.

Follow these steps, and you can take care of your porta potty the right way, and it’s not going to hurt anyone.

One Step Beyond: Let’s Do This Part Together
Emptying a portable toilet

does not have to be hard. If you prepare, have the right equipment and know how to do it, you can do it safely and you can do it well. But let’s not stop right there. Now that you know all that, let’s dig deeper into the little things that really make a difference in the way you maintain your porta potty.

Next, we will talk about things like the safety stuff you need to wear, how often you should do this, how to sterilize your porta potty the right way, and a bunch of other cool stuff.

What Safety Gear Do You Need To Wear?
There is some safety gear you need to wear when you’re taking care of a porta potty. Make sure you have on:

• Gloves: I use nitrile gloves because they resist chemicals better, and they resist punctures.
• Goggles: You should wear protective goggles because chemicals sometimes splash around when you’re emptying your porta potty.
• Masks: Sometimes you have to smell something that you really don’t want to smell when you’re handling concentrated chemicals. I put my mask on so I don’t smell it and breathe it in.
• Protective Clothing: Wear protective coveralls or an apron made out of waterproof material so you don’t get any of that stuff on you.

How Often Should You Do This?
You must do it regularly. Depending on the amount of use:

• High-traffic Areas: If you’re at a big event, you should take care of it every day or every two days.
• Events: If you’re at an event like that, they should use a multiple-units-serviced-as-needed basis, usually on a daily basis. This way they don’t run out. They don’t get all stinky. People enjoy using it.
• Regular Hygiene: If you want to take care of your customer, you have to service them regularly. You don’t want to do it so much that you throw money away, but you do have to do it enough so people can use it.
• Regular Visits: If you have some portable toilets on a construction site or you’re using them outside, you should take care of them once a week so they don’t run over and stink before you come back next week.

It doesn’t matter. There’s no method to the madness. You put chemicals in there, it’s going to help things out, make sure your toilet’s clean, then make sure it’s all loaded back up, and you’re good to go.

How to Sterilize a Porta Potty After You Empty It:
Make sure that you clean the porta potty well after you empty it. Incredible odor control and cleanliness are all about two very important things:

• Good Quality Disinfectant: They sell industrial disinfectants that kill bacteria and viruses. Use those when you clean the porta potty. You have to clean the inside.
• Aggressively Clean All Your Surfaces: You have to get your brush out and clean the walls really good, scrub the seat really good, and scrub the inside where all that wastewater is. That’s where you’re going to have a problem right there…That’s where the stink is gonna hide.
• Rinse and Air-Dry: After you’re done doing all that, make sure you rinse it thoroughly with water. Let it air out a little bit so it dries. You want to do that so your porta potty’s not retaining any moisture. Any place it stays wet is where more bacteria starts growing.
• Keep the Smell Down: Put the Blue. Blue also acts as a solid deodorizer. Make sure you put that stuff in there and it will help keep your porta potty smelling good until the next time you take care of it.

Taking care of your porta potty seems like it is hard, but when you actually do it and have the right stuff and you know what you’re doing, it’s easy. You just have to:

You’re good to go. That’s all there is to it.

Are you ready to step up your porta potty game? Make sure you do all this stuff, and you’re not only taking care of hygiene, but you’re also making the earth a little bit cleaner and safer for everybody.