Just a few more nights of sleep and then King Willem-Alexander can blow out 57 candles. Millions of people celebrate his birthday in the center of different cities. Often with a beer or soft drink. But of course your bladder converts drinks into urine, and that is bad when there are hardly any toilets available.
For many people, one of the least pleasant moments of King’s Day is the moment when you are looking for a toilet to relieve yourself with a full bladder. According to Bart van Bezooijen, chairman of the Dutch Association for Urology, it is best to urinate before you leave the house on Saturday. “Even if you don’t have to, you can just pee on command and leave with an empty bladder.”
Fable
On average, it takes about three hours for your body to urinate fluids that you have drunk. That fluid enters your blood via your intestines and stomach, after which your kidneys turn it into urine. “Some people think that you immediately pee out what you drink. But that is a myth.”
He compares the bladder to a storehouse. If there is quite a bit in it, on average you will receive a signal that you have to pee after just under half a liter. “In principle, it doesn’t hurt to hold your urine, but if it takes too long, you’ll end up peeing in your pants. With three quarters of a liter in your bladder, most people are really ready to burst,” says Van Bezooijen.
15,000 Dixi’s in the Netherlands
And anyone who is about to burst is of course eagerly looking for a toilet. Simon Bosschieter of Dixi Sanitary Services places extra Dixis on King’s Day to accommodate the urinating crowd. “On a normal day there are about 15,000 Dixi’s in the Netherlands and another 3,000 will be added on King’s Day,” he says. You can find them in almost all places where it is busy.
Sleeping in Dixi
Afterwards, all Dixi’s are emptied, cleaned and then taken to the storage location. “After King’s Day we suck up approximately 150,000 liters of urine,” says Bosschieter. Urine is not the only thing they encounter in the Dixi’s. “We also often find telephones or passports. Drunk people sometimes fall asleep in the toilets. Then we have to wake them up the next morning.”
Urinary tips on King’s Day:
- Go to the toilet before you leave the house, even if you don’t have to.
- Be sparing with coffee, because it irritates your bladder.
- With the HogeNood app you can always find the nearest accessible toilet.
Source: Dutch Association for Urology
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