This year’s Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs is special for a couple of reasons. First, it’s the 150th running of the event, and it’s the second year Porta Kleen will handle sanitary facilities for its visitors. Porta Kleen is sending more than 400 portable restrooms, 13 restroom trailers and more than 50 handwashing stations.
During the event, Porta Kleen will provide a total of at least 15 employees from the Louisville, Cincinnati and Lancaster branches who will work to make sure everything goes smoothly, and customers’ expectations are met.
“The majority of all equipment gets delivered the week prior to the April 27 Opening Night,” said Division Manager Chris Waite. “Once again, we will utilize employees from various branches in order to meet this time frame and do it in a safe manner.”
Although the event setup takes one week, planning for the event takes a couple months. “We meet with Churchill Downs multiple times as locations of equipment as well as quantities of equipment change as their layout evolves,” Waite said. “Once we get our final needs, we then start building the delivery plan.”
Waite said one of the most exciting days the Porta Kleen team has on events of this size is when the team is officially “event ready.” “This is when we have all equipment in its final place and ready for the public to use,” he said. “Our goal from this moment until the event is over is for Churchill Downs not to have to worry about us or the sanitation needs the entire time.” Visitors have full faith in Porta Kleen to take care of all needs and any unforeseen issues that may occur during the event.
“One great thing about this event is that we will do all of our servicing in the middle of the night when the general public never sees us,” Waite said. “We will make sure that when they arrive the next day that every single portable restroom and restroom trailer looks unused and spotless.”
The Kentucky Derby is one of the world’s premier events and the Porta Kleen team is proud and committed to providing the Derby’s visitors with the superior service all of Porta Kleen’s customers have come to expect.