In the streets of Hamburg, Germany, a new form of urban deterrent is turning public urination into an instant lesson in cause and effect. Known as “anti-pee paint,” this specialized nano-coating creates a superhydrophobic surface, repelling liquids so completely that anything touching it slides off with remarkable force. The result? Anyone attempting to relieve themselves on a treated wall experiences an immediate and unforgettable splash-back. The technology borrows from nature, mimicking the microscopic structure of a lotus leaf. Tiny ridges and air pockets prevent any liquid from adhering, meaning walls remain clean while offenders get an eye-opening consequence — all without the need for confrontation, fines, or patrols. It’s an ingenious blend of physics and human psychology: the paint doesn’t punish with authority, it punishes with instant feedback. First popularized in Hamburg’s St. Pauli district in 2015, this approach has since been trialed in other cities like London and San Francisco. While the coating is costly, city authorities note significant savings on cleaning and maintenance, and a marked decrease in repeat offenses. Beyond hygiene, it’s a striking example of how urban design and material science can work together to shape behavior. For engineers, urban planners, and city residents, anti-pee paint is both a marvel of nano-engineering and a lesson in poetic justice. The streets stay cleaner, the message is immediate, and the offender leaves with a story they won’t soon forget.
This is hostile architecture. Build toilets instead.
They have toilets. People are just wretched.
A lot of Europe charges to use them though, whoch i find weird. Imo they should be funded by public budgets the way libraries, school buses, roads etc are.
Like, of ya gotta pee, ya gotta pee. If you gotta pee and you don’t have any Euros on you, what else are you supposed to fucking do?? Literally what are your options at that point?
I’m sure some people would do this anyway but I suspect a lot of them can’t/won’t pay for a public toilet and aren’t close enough to a private one. It’s a UX issue
Imo they should be funded by public budgets the way libraries, school buses, roads etc are.
They are, and many low traffic toilets are completely free.
However, in high traffic areas, some arguments they tend to give against this:
- Asking for a small amount of money deters a vandalism because people would only go in there to use the toilet. Not many people would pay to go and trash the place or put some tags in there.
- It’s an easy way to get extra money for maintenance
- In case of drug users it could help because some of them might already spend all their money on the drugs themselves thus making the small cost bothersome. (Although strong blue lights are a better deterrent because they hide your veins)
A lot of toilets in Europe in low traffic areas tend to be free. There’s also quite some open air urinals in heavy traffic areas that are free but they smell horrible.
There’s also some European countries that allow/tolerate public urination but limit it to non-privately owned natural bushes and require you to do it decently. (Not showing any genitals)
If you gotta pee and you don’t have any Euros on you, what else are you supposed to fucking do?? Literally what are your options at that point?
In places where they ask for money you can often plead your case and can enter without paying. Many places also ask for money without actually having somebody present or blocking your entry if you do not. I’ve seen a lot of little plates with cash just laying there without anybody being present.
what am I supposed to do? tap my phone and pay .5 usd for the privilege of using a clean-ish toilet in the middle of the plaza. not that big of an issue.
Yeah, people forget that people is the reason we cannot have nice things.
Not so much in London, and usually you need to pay for the public ones.
Clearly not enough easily accessible toilets for people to not pee on the sides of buildings. If the problem is so big that you’re considering designing hydrophobic pisser punisher paint you clearly don’t have enough places for people to pee.
I’ve been to a very large capital in Europe recently, there’s been a whole three toilets when I needed one, ranging from 15 to 30 minutes away, and the best part is when I got to them, all were inaccessible because they are located inside of the park that closes doors at 18:00 (before that, in fact). The toilets are even marked 24h on the map, very convenient.
So yeah, even not considering drunk people, there are not nearly enough toilets in a lot of places.
Maybe Europe should get some fucking public bathrooms.
Not looking at you, Switzerland, you’re good.
We have them. Its just that a lot of us are such fucking degenerates that we piss and shit on the toilet seats and in the urinals that no one wants to go fucking near them. Others, have are filled with blue lights, so that all the junkies cant see their veins and shoot up somewhere else.
Basically, we cant have nice things because some of us are just utter cunts. Some have been put behind a paywall, but people moaned about that as well. Basically, there are solutions, but nobody wants them because “what about the people who dont have money?”. And the answer “I guess they dont get to shit in the urinals!” is never a welcome one…
In The Netherlands, we don’t have them, but you can piss at most bars and restaurants. Still the drunk guys choose to urinate at the walls, in the plants, in the bicycles, in the stairways of parking lots. It’s gross and annoying.
I welcomed it in the sense I just laughed for 20 seconds
Does that really work? I get the impression that people would go pee on that wall just to see it bounce.
Let’s scientifically try for an side angle, at which there is no measurable peeback effect any more.
Nice. It would be like in India where they turn to put up some metal crates to stop rickshaws from driving there, but cars could.
Workaround: wider wheels on the rickshaws, or modifying the distance of the wheels to fit said crates. People always find a workaround.
Or they just ride over the grates on a angle.
Great, now we need to invent piss retroreflectors
This is what we do instead of creating a better world.
We engineer hydrophobic paint to stop people from peeing on a wall…
I’d argue that keeping piss off of walls is making the world a better place, no? Especially in a high traffic area in dense European cities, the smell can be quite strong
Couldn’t they just… have some (more) public toilets, or have any existing public toilets open for more hours?
But you do know that you can just not piss up against a wall, and just piss on the ground… right? Or better yet, make a game of it, and piss on the wall at different angles. You and your mates playing piss wars against the wall and trying to avoid each other splashback would be of interest to a lot of pissheads on the way home after finishing the kabab.
This is creating a better world you dummy
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Anything to not build public washrooms
Mooie chemicals to leak onto the environment. This is really a pfas 2.0 waiting to happen
Yup, it’s fucking dumb and Its easily countered by peeing on the wall at an angle as well.
Or better yet, directly onto the ground beside the wall…
Guarantee it’s a PFAS type chemical.
“the streets stay clean” yet the paint ensures that all the piss makes it down to the street
This is what I was thinking… they didn’t get rid of gravity. Also, who pees on the wall, even without a coating it’s going to splash at least a little.
Paint the streets too. Checkmate, pee
Just pee directly on to the floor then.
Hit it on a 45 degree angle along the horizontal plane and it will bounce onto the shoes of the fella next to you
You just invented a turn-based game to play with friends.
Only way it could truly work is if it were retroreflective.
And that main reason people publicly urinate is because there aren’t any toilets.
So the homeless people peeing on the streets will now definitely smell like piss wherever they go, instead of just maybe smelling like piss? Good times.
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Cities: “ugh, toilets are so expensive to maintain. Remove them.”
Cities: “everything smells like piss now :(”
If there is no toilets available, a wall or a bush does the trick just fine. I ain’t going to rupture my fucking bladder because some bean counter decided to count beans.
How much does that useless paint cost??
as much as some subcontractors to get rich
The streets shall run yellow… WITH JUSTICE!
Or just yellow, as everyone takes a big step back and pisses directly on to the ground… Now paint the ground, and we can all have a laugh every time it rains lol.
The ground is just concrete not painted duh
Reading is hard…
##I tested Soho’s anti-pee paint and I was bitterly disappointed that I didn’t get soaked
###Is Westminster Council taking the p? I certainly think so
https://www.mylondon.news/news/news-opinion/i-tested-sohos-anti-pee-25798676
It’s not that Hamburg doesn’t have public toilets, but Hamburg is known for the “Reeperbahn” - a street lined with bars (I think the American equivalent to it would be something like Bourbon Street in New Orleans?). People go there to get wasted off their asses and no matter how many public restrooms you put up there, they will piss wherever.
(There’s also an amazing documentary series about the Supermarket on that street and the characters that visit it)
Ah, The good old pennymarkt documentary. One of the most legendary German documentaries ever created.
