This summer, Glenbard South caught up on a much-needed renovation of the girl’s locker room. Not only did the school get new lockers and showers, but a new bathroom as well, complete with the new sensor-activated technology that is slowly consuming the building.

    In the twenty-first century, sensor-activated bathrooms seem like the next logical step as humanity enters a more technological society. After all, they save peoples’ hands from having to encounter the filthy surfaces that infamously adorn public restrooms by requiring a simple swish of the hand over the infrared sensor on toilet flushes, faucets and hand dryers, thus eliminating the need for physical contact. But what happens when this technology fails?

    Girls who attended Glenbard South last year may remember the fiasco with the Door Four bathrooms that went unsolved for, according to the student body of the time, much too long. The smudged decal of water droplets that decors the buttons on the toilet handles serves as a grim reminder of how many countless soiled hands have touched the toilet to flush it, due to the sensor failing to completely flush the toilet. Instead of flushing waste with a full-forced flush, the sensor was only capable of weakly draining the water halfway down the pipes, allowing for leftover waste to be regurgitated back up to the bowl. As it could probably be predicted, no one would clean up after themselves, staying true to the law of the tragedy of the commons; therefore, leaving a repulsive stall to sit for the rest of the day.

    Of course, the buttons are there for a reason. They serve the same function as any other toilet handle that adorns public restrooms, including bathrooms in the rest of the building, and in most, if not all, homes. However, if the effort is going to be made to install sensors for the purpose of sanitation and convenience, the effort should be put into maintaining them as well.

    So far few complaints about the newly refurbished restrooms downstairs have managed to snake their way about the halls, but Glenbard South should take more caution in proper sensor upkeep in order to prevent a relapse of the disaster that was the bathroom conditions of last year.