Portable Toilets Are Returned to Skid Row

Los Angeles’ skid row potty crisis ended Thursday evening with the return of 26 portable toilets and more money for the company that services them.

The public toilets, which are used by skid row’s sizable homeless population, were unexpectedly carted away Tuesday by Browning-Ferris Industries, which hauled them back after winning a substantial increase in its monthly fee from the city.

The extra money is needed, BFI officials said, to properly dispose of the many used hypodermic needles found in and near the toilets, as well as to staff the toilet pump truck with an additional worker.

“This is an interim step to keep the service in place,” Albert Stephens, director of city purchasing services, said of the agreement to increase BFI’s monthly skid row service fee from $7,951 to $13,500.

The money comes from the local homeless authority, he said, and his office will research similar services to see “if that is a fair price.”

BFI said various steps are necessary to handle the needles.

“You can’t pick them up and throw them in the trash. It’s highly illegal,” said Arnie Berghoff, a BFI spokesman. Nor can workers leave them in the toilet bowl because the waste collected from the portables is ultimately pumped into the county sewage system.

BFI, which has a large medical waste branch, says it will give the drivers who service the portables training in handling needles, extra-thick gloves and sealed containers to hold them. The containers will then be taken to BFI’s Vernon facility, where the needles will be treated and disposed of.