Issue link: http://psai.uberflip.com/i/831315
W EEKLY EDITION MAY 31, 2017 Member News: The Poop Scoop on Festival Season features PSAI Member Service Sanitation …continued By Leor Galil as provided to the Chicago Reader, May 24, 2017 The fact that this necessary service costs more than most people expect is probably indirectly responsible for the knee - jerk revulsion the public feels toward porta - potties. "You will have contracting custo mers trying to 'save money' by making decisions that result in very unpleasant user conditions," Kos says. "This is all too frequent, because the people who made the decision to 'economize' don't ever personally use the portable restrooms, so they don't ex perience firsthand the conditions that result from their choices." Part of Kos's job with the PSAI is to help potential customers think clearly about something they'd rather not consider at all. "For most people who've ever had to use a portable toilet, i t's not their favorite thing in the world," she says. "The units have a reputation as being gross and disgusting — and true, there are limitations to portable restrooms. But a lot of times it would not be a negative experience if the restroom units were supp lied in adequate quantity, pumped with greater frequency, and the quality of cleaning ensured tidy, well - stocked cabins." The rule of thumb Kay follows — one porta - potty for every hundred attendees — is intended to help forestall emotionally scarring conditio ns like those on the second day of last year's Pitchfork festival . (Waste Management was working that job, though the problem wasn't necessarily its fault.) Service Sanitation posts signs on all its porta - potties with a 24 - hour hotline number, but the resp onsibility for the toilets' cleanliness remains in the hands of customers — if they don't call that hotline, or if they don't spend enough on upkeep, sooner or later somebody's gonna end up sitting in pee. A cautionary tale emerged in February of this year, when Amalgamated Transit Union Local 241 (which represents CTA employees) called a press conference to demand better restroom facilities. The CTA has a contract with Service Sanitation to provide porta - potties for its employees on routes with limited acc ess to public restrooms, but the union says the CTA maintains those toilets so poorly that some drivers have resorted to wearing adult diapers. The CTA is one of several city departments that have active contracts with Service Sanitation, and Kay has help ed foster those connections since he joined the company in 2008. Because Service Sanitation is a private company, and because some of its partnerships require it to sign nondisclosure agreements, it's difficult to know, say, the exact number of summer even ts it supplies with porta - potties. When it comes to its contracts with the city, though, much of that information remains on the record. In July 2011, Service Sanitation signed a City of Chicago vendor contract that covers multiple awards for rental and ma intenance of porta - potties; as of May 12, 2017, the city had paid Service Sanitation $3,212,943 in a little less than six years. Not every event the company works is listed individually on the contract — Taste of Chicago is missing, oddly — but you can find th e Air & Water Show, Blues Fest, Jazz Fest, and several parades. Kay says Service Sanitation's peak events season begins Saint Patrick 's Day and ends just after Halloween. "December, January, I get to plug back into the wall and charge up the batteries," he says. Of course, Service Sanitation does plenty of business with private companies — Live Nation has a contract for bathroom trailers with running water at Huntington Bank Pavilion at Northerly Island, for instance. And Service Sanitation has earned enough goodwill that people will call it in a pinch. P AGE 10 CONTINUED ON PAGE 11