In preparation for the summer tourist season and the 2024 Olympic Games, the French Capital is doubling down on their efforts to curb “urination sauvage”, or “wild peeing”.
Yes, that’s a thing.
As if they didn’t have enough on their plate, with significant challenges like security for public events, the city also has to work out a way to stop locals from relieving themselves in public, which is apparently pretty big in Paris.
According to the ABC, Paris handed out 5,381 citations for public urination in 2017, which is three times the number issued the previous year. The fine is 68 euros, which may not have been a big enough deterrent.
“The situation is not at all satisfactory,” Mao Peninou, the deputy mayor in charge of Prevention, Security and Protection told the ABC.
“We are modernising our material and adapting our approach.”
To counter the high volume of wee plaguing the Parisian streets, the mayor’s office has said it will deploy 3,200 agents to police public “incivility”, which includes urination.
They will also be supporting several tech-savvy pilot programs including “green” urinals, stocked with absorbent straw and equipped with gauges to alert when containers are full, urinals that are stored underground during the day and pop up come nightfall and portable urinals which can be emptied directly into gutters which flow into the city’s sewer system.
Our personal favourite solution was a special deflecting paint that made urine streams bounce back onto the shoes and pants of the offender, which the ABC reports worked, but was too costly at 3,000 euros per square meter.
