No toilet paper for you at National Parks or Forests 🚽 🧻 🪠

Better be equipped when you visit your local federal facility in the coming weeks and months, as if it’s anything like Twitter, there will be big cuts back to janitorial staff at federal facilities including parks and forests.

Honestly, it’s kind of childish to stop supplying toilet paper and cleaning the bathrooms at federal facilties just to make a political point – and maybe save a little bit of money. That said, at least so far there have not been any widespread closures announced for federal facilities, and in that sense it’s a good thing. The government is doing more with less. Maybe too little, but it’s not the silliness we saw when they closed down many National Parks and developed Forest Service facilities during the 2012 Federal Government shutdown.

Like closing the gates at National Parks and National Forests during the 2012 shutdown, it’s as much a tactic to negotiate more funding for other priorities. Cleaning toilets and buying toilet paper costs money, but it’s not the largest expense of any government agency by far. Even if you fire all the janitors, there are other government employees that can clean toilets and restock toilet paper. Janitors aren’t the only people on this earth that can clean toilets. That said, maybe it’s not the most cost effective use of staff to have management or Forest Rangers cleaning toilets and stocking toilet paper.

Childish maybe, but dirty toilets shouldn’t be an excuse to close parks and forests down. They can find alternative staff, but the concern remains – what are the alternative staff not now doing? A lack of cleaning not only makes parks disgusting, it also encourages bad behavior. If somebody dumps garbage in toilet, and it remains there, it becomes an attractive dumping ground for others. If somebody sprays poop on the walls, then what’s to stop someone else from carving their initials in it? It’s already a dump.

Truth is I suspect there aren’t a lot of government workers who don’t have a full load on their plate. So maybe we don’t need less park and forest workers, but actually more. But of course, each additional worker comes at a cost. Maybe we don’t need such fancy park facilities, maybe we can invest in simplicity that does not require so much staff to build and maintain. Maybe parks should become more primitive and less reliant on constant government staff maintenance to keep them viable.