– Hey man, have you been to the bathroom yet?
– No.
The journalist looked at the back of the tent that served as a press centre, set up in the garden of a hotel in Viana do Castelo where the Iberian Summit was taking place, which brought together, last November, António Costa with Pedro Sanchez. The inside of the tent was a cold, unpleasant space. An improvised sign pointed an arrow to the WC. He hesitated a few seconds and continued.
– I think I’ll take advantage of the hotel. That back there must be one of those concerts…
– None of that, comrade. It has nothing to do. Go try it out. That’s amazing.
Incredible? Was the colleague joking?
Curious, the journalist left the tent and almost collided with a caravan parked there. Go up some steps and enter. The colleague follows him.
– And on! This looks like a hotel suite!
A well decorated room, scented, with a pleasant temperature (contrasting with the humid cold that was felt in the press center tent), little flowers. The washrooms were topped by a large mirror. Gels and creams from an exquisite cosmetics brand made up the scene.
– Didn’t I tell you?
Despite the small size of the vehicle, the toilet cabins were spacious enough. And well-smelling, perfumed, impeccably clean.
– Hey man, we can no longer say that we were mistreated. The tent is cold, the catering is terrible, but at least we have luxury bathrooms. Who is responsible for this?
– I think he’s out there. He should be a consultant for the toilets on CP trains.
– Good morning! Can we take a card?
– Do a favour. My name is Luis Carlos. If you need any information…
Journalists are – intrinsically – curious. And the businessman did not dodge the questions.
Who had a caravan business that included this segment of luxury, used toilets – amazing! – especially in film shootings to support production teams.
– Look, three years ago, at Fonte da Telha… It was extremely hot…! The director grabbed his laptop and went to the bathroom to write. We have generators and air conditioning. The vehicles are autonomous and that was the coolest place there was.
That cold morning in Viana de Castelo was the opposite: the perfumed vehicle was very warm.
Unlike other similar vehicles, with systems for disposing of dirty water, Mr. Luís Carlos’ WC Green treats waste with a biological product identical to that used in WWTPs. “If there were now a burst and a leak of these waters, there would be no major problem because clean water would come out, without smells, without anything”, he explains.
One of the reasons why these vehicles are called “green bathrooms” is because they do not cause any kind of noise pollution or gas emissions. They run on batteries and solar panels.
Paddy Cosgrave, co-founder of Web Summit, surrendered to the magnificence of these environmentally friendly WCs. “He got past. He said he had never seen anything like it. He was very insistent on whether this was really eco-friendly, he asked me a lot of questions and invited the VIPs to come and visit the toilets. And you know what I get asked all the time? If this is done in Portugal…! Of course. Fully.”