Are these changes at work legal?

[PineappleGarage]

I work at a university with all the crap finances that entails. As part of their current cost cutting they’ve made this announcement. Are these changes legal? The bit about sanitary bins in particular gave me pause but cleaning an office once per month doesn’t sound great either. Where it mentioned students using cleaning stations, they must mean the PhD students who have their own allocated desk or office. I’ve removed a bit of the preamble where they mention it’s further to the VC’s announcement:

In developing the changes to cleaning outlined below, we have considered the financial savings that can be made, the positive environmental impact of reducing our chemical and plastic usage, and the fact that we no longer need to provide the same level of cleaning provision as we did during Covid.

The changes will not impact student and customer-facing areas – these areas will continue with current cleaning arrangements.

Cleaning provision from 1 September
• Office cleaning – this is going from a weekly clean to a monthly clean and will not necessarily happen on a fixed day each month for every office.
• Cleaning stations – a cleaning station will be installed in each building so that staff and students can clean their own workstations in between the monthly cleaning visits, if they wish. In some buildings, this might be a bottle of non-hazardous multi-purpose cleaning product and a suitable cleaning cloth, in others it will be a cleaning station stand. We will be repurposing the existing Ecolab hand sanitiser stands for this, where appropriate.
• Under-desk bins – we would prefer everyone to remove their under-desk bin and use the local recycling and waste points in their buildings instead. Colleagues wishing to keep a small under-desk bin will need to empty it themselves as necessary. If you have a bin but no longer require it, please leave it outside your office door from 1 September and we’ll take it away for you. If you need a bin under your desk, for example if you have limited mobility and would struggle to reach a recycling point, please let our on-site cleaning team know so we can arrange a suitable solution.
• Designated eating areas – to ensure good maintenance and housekeeping of our buildings, we encourage everyone to eat away from their desks or at designated eating areas, where available. Please also be mindful of ways you can avoid unnecessary spills and avoid possible slip hazards such as using drinks containers with lids if walking through buildings.
• Sanitary bins – the number of sanitary bins in our toilet facilities will be reduced, with one in every other cubicle. We’ll use signage to highlight the cubicles in which bins are present. Some high footfall areas, such as those near lecture rooms for instance, may be an exception to this.

Thank you for helping us implement the above changes.

Yep we’ve had pretty similar happen in our office, we still have bins under desk, but these hardly get used since we have recycling bins and a communal waste food bin which gets does get emptied daily. Our desks get cleaned by ourselves, however you’ve reminded me to take my own cleaning cloth as the one on our supplies station is pretty rank. The 2 cleaners do run the hoover round but this is all within our work day, not sure this is every week, gone are the days when the big team of cleaners started as we left for the day.

No, there are no legal requirements beyond "adequate" disposal facilities.

Oh @PineappleGarage it's Cranfield, is it? Yes, I knew about their issues already, I'm sorry, it must be pretty shit.

All pretty standard.

Everyone knows whe people use the sanitary bins anyway- they're noisy (as are wrappers). Unless you hide in the cubicle until the loo is empty people already know when you've used it.

The HSE require that sanitary disposal facilities must be provided. They do not specify how they are provided nor how many

It would need to be established that the change was unsuitable, such as a reduction by half such as two down to one could be unreasonable as that could render the only one unavailable, but if there are a sufficient number of cubicles that allowed some flexibility with the ability to go to a suitable cubicle based on the signs

www.hse.gov.uk/simple-health-safety/workplace-facilities/health-safety.htm

So you want a well soaked pad to be sat in the bin two weeks?

When I started work back in the 70's, we didn't have bins, we had an incinerator , but it was one per toilet block so then it became shameful to be having periods so the bins became the norm

Very few women have periods now compared to the 70's , there is no need for a bin in every cubicle

The sanitary bin thing is foolish. Nobody is going to wait to use the right cubicle, either out of the need for speed, or not wanting to flag up they need to change a sanitary product. It's weird. And visitors will just be confused. Tell bosses to expect expensive blocked pipes, as towels and tampons are going to get flushed down. The communal cleaning once a month is lax, but likely legal. Check against your local policies too. Not had bins under a desk in two decades now though tbh.

Yep. The atmosphere is bleak. To add salt to wounds, they hired another executive recently while the academics are cut to the bone.

All sounds pretty standard stuff.

Quite a few toilet facilities dont’t have sanitary bins in every cubicle.

I’m surprised by that. I’ve never been caught short in a cubicle without a bin and it’s not something I’ve ever checked before going in.

That sounds pretty typical of a lot of institutions and the NHS etc - armies of clipboard-bearers, and no stretcher-bearers.

All perfectly legal and common in the private sector. We removed personal bins around 10 years ago to meet recycling targets, it's pretty antiquated to have them.
As others have said it's also quite normal to have limited sanitary bins, they are paid per bin for collections with an overall fee for collecting from your address. Depends on how your building is set up but ours we organized so that all wcs accessed by clients included in every wc, then on other floors we have 4 blocks of 3 toilets and one of the blocks has bins the others do not. Staff know this and just head for the toilets they need. Our bins were nearly empty most collections when we asked for them to be checked.

Cleaning we have daily cleaners for floors and wcs . All of our workstations are hot desked so anyone using a desk always gives it a wipe when they start and we all fill and empty dishwashers / clean kitchens. Without cleaners doing it we found people became tidy and more respectful of communal spaces.

Might depend a lot on the kind of places you go.

Community run facilities often only have one. Sticker on the door saying which one. Places with unisex toilets, some bins, some changing tables, some rails. Marked on the doors.

None of the last 3 corporate offices I've worked in have had personal desk bins. Current office has recycling bins, food waste bins, general waste bins, confidential paper shredding bins.

I do expect a sanitary bin in each toilet cubicle, though. I have not been anywhere that skimpd on that.

I'm not sure I'd like sanitary bins to be left for long periods between emptying. I'd rather less bins and more frequent emptying personally.
I don't think every other cubicle is that onerous unless there are only a few cubicles. It's rare in my office that all rhe cublices are occupied. Mostly only a couple

Just to play devils advocate, I know from experience that sani bins are very expensive to service and have to have separate specialist contracts.
It's not ideal but it's an easy financial saving to ask everyone to keep their own space tidy, not sure a monthly full clean is enough though. See how it goes and if it doesn't seem to be working then definitely flag it

Very few women have periods now?!

I work in HE too and our offices are cleaned termly. It is really grim and absolutely morale sapping

I do think it’s terrible about the sanitary bins! If it was a man’s issue there would be uproar, but it’s ok, we can manage/have accidents/be embarrassed so YOU can save money.

In a normal workplace I would say there would be very few women having periods

Between the pill, the coil and being pregnant ? Then age ?

I personally didn't have a period since I was 32 and I know many of my peers who chose the mirena didn't

This, sounds pretty standard to my last big employer did this 15 plus years ago

I’ve never worked in an office where you get a bin under each desk so that would be fine for me. I’m loos with low footfall, I’m sure a sanitary bin in every other loo will be fine. On average, only 25% of women of childbearing age will be on their period on any given week. I’m sure it will be fine. The cleaning is a bit gross though.

Apart from the sanitary bins, this is exactly how our office has been for as long as I can remember. No under desk bins, monthly cleans with the ability for users to clean areas themselves if they'd like to, and no eating at desks.

I don't think it's fair for women to have to queue for a cubicle with a sanitary bin though, if there are other cubicles available. Did a man come up with that idea?

Removing some sanitary bins is inappropriate.

What do they expect women to do if no cubicle with a bin is available? leave sanitary products on the floor? shove them in their bags and take them home? put them down the toilet and block them?

The rest unfortunately they probably get away with the bins need to be made available in all female toilets cubicles so everything can remain hygienic.

Will the sanitary bins only be emptied once a month too?!! I think that and the other issue, one in every other cubicle? No no no!!