Plans for new toilet facilities around Iceland’s ring road

Stopping for a toilet break...

Stopping for a toilet break... Photo: Iceland Monitor/Styrmir Kári

Plans exist for the Icelandic Road and Coastal Administration (IRCA) to set up toilet facilities at service areas around the country’s national ring road.

Director of the IRCA Hreinn Haraldsson told mbl.is that land-owners are appalled by road users going to the toilet on the roadside or around service areas and that some existing facilities are so misused that they will likely have to be taken down.

This led the IRCA to formulate provisional plans for temporary festival-style toilet facilities at 50-60 sites around the national ring road. The costs of the first stage (the installation of 25-30 toilets and management for one summer) was estimated at ISK 80 million – approx. €575,000.

But these plans remain on the drawing board, as the IRCA has neither the legal authorisation nor the funds for such an operation.

The plans were presented to Iceland’s Tourism Task Force earlier this month, but nothing concrete has yet emerged.

“These plans exist and we can produce them whenever somebody expresses interest in such a project,” says Haraldsson.

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