Missoirs: This Woman Wants to Revolutionize Women's Bathroom Trips

TVS News AI, editorially supervised, presents Missoirs: This Woman Wants to Revolutionize Women's Bathroom Trips.

2017 marks the moment Lena Olvedi came up with the idea. The now-45-year-old Berliner was working as a television set dresser at the time and once again waited a long time for the toilet in a club. When a man mocked the long queue and headed to the urinal with his friend, Olvedi wondered: Why is there no urinal for women?

That same night, she began thinking about a prototype. The starting point was not a sophisticated market plan, but a concrete inequality: Women generally wait longer than men for public toilets in clubs, arenas and highway rest stops. Urinals require less space than seated toilets, meaning men have more options on the same amount of floor space. Women also take longer because they urinate while seated.

From a Deep Squat to a Stainless-Steel Urinal

The position was not a matter of personal preference for Olvedi. Raised on La Palma, she once had to squat in the so-called full squat behind a tree on her way home from school. She found the skier's squat, in which one sits on one's heels, unpleasant and unhealthy. This gave her the idea for a urinal that enables a full squat.

After several months of planning and with technical assistance from an acquaintance, Olvedi built the Missoir. It is made of stainless steel, set into the floor and connected to the sewer system. It also features a splash guard, a fine-mesh grille and a support rail on either side. Partition walls can be added if needed. Because any number of units can be placed side by side, they can be used to create complete urinal areas.

The partition walls also have a practical role. Olvedi says male decision-makers often fear that women would not want to urinate next to one another. According to her research, this concern is unfounded. She also says she has to explain the concept to female decision-makers much less than she does to men.

The response was evident early on: In 2019, Olvedi tested her prototype at festivals and received plenty of positive feedback. Visitors left love letters in the guestbooks. At one music festival, she even received a tip from a man who said: “I have never waited for my wife for so little time.”

Can the Missoirs become widespread in concert halls or restaurants?

From Sold-Out Festival Toilets to a B2B Business

The pandemic initially marked a turning point. An event organizer wanted to use her Missoirs at a trade fair and cancelled at short notice. Olvedi researched the virus's impact on events and then put her savings into the project. She launched a crowdfunding campaign and took out a private loan.

According to her own account, her mobile Missoirs were fully booked during the 2022 and 2023 festival seasons. “We had the most grateful toilets,” she recalls of the portable toilets deployed. Women finally no longer had to endure long waits at the festival.

Olvedi no longer rents out toilet trailers equipped with Missoirs. Instead, she has moved on to series production for B2B sales. The manufacturer is based in Germany. The business has therefore shifted from a mobile festival offering to a product for permanently installed sanitary facilities.

Waterless Urinals Save Drinking Water and Create More Spaces

For operators, the economic benefit does not come solely from serving guests more quickly. The Missoirs operate without water and have an odor seal. A single urinal costs a few hundred euros. According to Olvedi, this amount soon pays for itself through reduced water consumption.

Conventional seated toilets use around 3 to 14 liters of water per visit, depending on the cistern and flushing method. The source does not fully substantiate the comparison, but it makes the concept's economic rationale understandable: An operator can supplement seated toilets with Missoirs and gain urinal spaces without using tap water for each visit.

Another advantage lies in the process: According to Olvedi's observations, women are less likely to join the queue even when they do not have to. Because the wait is predictably shorter, the pressure associated with long lines eases. For Jens J. Wischmann, managing director of the German Sanitary Industry Association, the main benefits from a public-space perspective are more users per unit of space, shorter waiting times, lower water consumption and less cleaning effort for a functioning women's urinal.

Berghain, Potsdam and Alpine Huts Show the Potential Areas of Use

Olvedi has already won over customers in Germany. Her Missoirs are installed in various clubs, including the Berghain in Berlin, as well as in public toilets and less obvious locations such as Sanssouci Palace in Potsdam and huts operated by the German Alpine Club.

Waterless operation is particularly relevant for the Alpine huts. The huts normally draw their water from glaciers, which is becoming more difficult because of climate change. Waterless urinals for men have long existed; now they are also available for women. To ensure that the still largely unfamiliar Missoirs are used, the German Alpine Club provided infographics explaining how to use them. A spokesperson said the products had proved themselves in practice.

Ecotoiletten GmbH, which offers waterless toilets for public spaces, also rates the Missoirs positively. From the company's perspective, they are an essential part of gender-appropriate sanitary provision: Women should have a comparable offering in terms of ease of use and hygiene.

The limits of the rollout so far are just as clear. Olvedi has not yet supplied any stadiums or multipurpose arenas. When asked, the operators of Berlin's Uber Arena, Signal Iduna Park in Dortmund, Merkur Spiel Arena and PSD Bank Dome had not yet emerged as planners for squat urinals. Event organizers in Düsseldorf are converting individual sanitary areas into unisex toilets as needed. At Berlin's Olympiastadion, the number of toilets was increased and gender-neutral toilets were also installed.

Olvedi says these solutions do not fully solve the lack of space. If only men can still use urinals, the disparity remains: Men then have more opportunities to urinate standing. For concerts with a predominantly female audience, the Olympiastadion additionally sets up toilet containers exclusively for women. In Olvedi's view, that is not an equivalent alternative.

A Market With Initial References but No Profit Yet

Tank & Rast, which operates most of Germany's highway rest stops, regards waterless squat urinals for women as an interesting but relatively young concept. According to the company, it has so far proven itself primarily in urban spaces. The group is therefore closely monitoring further market development and acceptance.

Olvedi currently has a business idea with no direct competition. Economically, however, she is still a long way from running a major business: annual revenue is in the tens of thousands of euros, and she makes no profit. She is the company's only employee and pays herself a small salary. For the next step, she is seeking investors and additional sanitary-product distributors.

Her personal summary is unequivocal: Women should not be given more options than men, but the same options. The Missoir is a concrete product with initial practical successes at festivals, clubs, public toilets and Alpine huts. However, there is as yet no evidence that it will be installed in major arenas or at additional rest stops.

The biggest hurdle so far is not technology alone. It lies in acceptance and operators' decisions. Tank & Rast states the condition for a broader rollout soberly: The concept must prove itself on the market and gain acceptance. Olvedi's own hope of one day finding the Missoir in a DIY store would therefore be a strong signal of greater demand – until then, Missoir GmbH remains a small company with initial references and an unresolved question of wider adoption.