Hello
How do Sqns deal with the issue of hygiene waste? Is this managed ‘in house’ ie some unlucky individual empties the bins in the toilets, or do they use professional companies. This is beconing an issue for our Sqn so it would be good to know what other do.
Many thanks
We use Binny sanitary bins. Google them, much better than paying a professional company.
We also use Binny - cost effective as no monthly fee’s, cheaper if you buy more but fold flat for easy storage.
Thank you for this recommendation. We’ve been frustrated trying to work out how to provide the correct support too.
Tied in a bin bag and disposed of in the household waste?
Not been on a Sqn for several years but camps are particularly problematic where a building do not have a sanitary contract.
Related but not specific to bins
A challenge we have found last 2 years or so is the hygiene around it and they aren’t being taught / aren’t taking it in if they are being taught
On camps they aren’t disposing of them properly which other than the obvious hygiene it also create smells etc - and I’m talking in bags and not just missing the bin.
To combat this specific to my Sqn we talk a lot more open about it if it comes up, the lady who does the lesson on reasonable makeup etc now includes it as part of it.
We’ve always supplied products in the toilets, but now we also provide essentially nappy bags that it can be put in. These go away on camps and things as well when I go and put into the loo’s for the duration.
But when checking Accomodation loo bins in the actual toilets is now on our check list and if not one then we get it sorted - most of the time I’ve found the staff themselves helpful and they’ve sorted it, I think twice we’ve use a cardboard box with a bag in it.
Provide sanitary items in the toilets.
Provide sanitary bins in the toilets.
All waste emptied after each parade from across the Sqn. Double sack the bag.
Only ever 1 sack of waste, even with 80 cadets.
If an ‘event’ civ com tasked with waste disposal.
Else i as OC cleared the one bag home each night.
Sack disposed of at work.
Job done.
Interesting. A battle I’ve fought with for years being told no (also was an OC and female).
This was the response from the Cadet Quartermaster RFCA when we put a bin out to do it ourself, with no expectation a CAA would pick it up following their categorical no when we asked on multiple occasions beforehand. We’ve been told in the past they should sort out before and after (it doesn’t always work out that way) and we should ask cadets to bring their own bag to put in their rucksacks and dispose of at home.
I’ve had similar conversations and I provide a box of sanitary products that cadets can utilise as required.
I’ve been searching for temporary bin options as it doesn’t seem remotely appropriate that we don’t provide sanitary bin provision when we already have to provide toilets.
I don’t understand why this isn’t a breach of the Equality Act?
I agree.
It feels to me like “too difficult / costly” rather than an actual reason for not providing support to many of our people.
Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 States:
Toilets should be connected to a suitable drainage system and have an effective means for flushing with water. Toilet paper should be provided in a holder or dispenser. A coat hook should also be provided. In toilets used by women, suitable means for the disposal of sanitary dressings should also be provided.
Lots of use of the word SHOULD
This is shocking but is the same response I had when I first moved to the Sqn and I made them try and explain to me how it is sanitary to be taking them home.
I got the Binney’s (I think a fair few use them now) within a week. I did email both the army and rfca with the website as I know the contract element came up, and on the website it showed how they can be disposed of and where in the law it comes under bodily fluids etc
There is a legal requirement for them to be provided - depending which angle you go down it is covered under a number of different one. For example Under the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992, it is mandatory to provide a suitable means for disposing of sanitary products in all female and unisex washrooms.
This is one of the reason that the 115 and counting replies to the thread on Unit identifiers on TRFs. They is a large number of CFAVs out there who see the organisation bringing out insignificant and inconsequential changes when really important things get pushed into the long grass or potentially acting illegally See above with sanitary provision.
We have had female cadets and staff in this organisation for 45 years and people are still unable to provide suitable disposal facilities for our cadets. This is a poor reflection on our organisation. This is why when someone at the top level of our organisation changes the layout of the brassard, again, when the policy on cadet supervision is still missing from ACP4 people have a sense of humour failure.
Surely whichever cretin wrote that response has solved their own point:
The provision and disposal of sanitary products has to be done as a local level.
You have done that. I’d just carry on with the Binnys.
But it’s different people, different teams.
I don’t disagree with you but if you are a CFAV on a Sqn at the bottom of the pyramid, it is very pointy at the top.
Isn’t the sanitary towel disposal issue caused by RFCA, rather than having anything to do with @AlexCorbin’s excellent work with the DPSG?
Never claimed anything like that. I was generalising peoples perception of “THE “ organisation as a whole and why there is push back. I just used that thread as an example of a thread with a high proportion of negative comments and not the decision itself. I am just happy that when I changed over my TRFs over from RAF to RAFAC. To avoid an unsightly mark on the blanking plate they were sown on the same place they came off and now my TRFs are in the right place.
