THE INAUGURAL FLUSHY AWARDS NAME SIX WINNERS BREAKING STIGMA AND TRANSFORMING PUBLIC RESTROOM ACCESS NATIONWIDE
From City Hall to Love Island, the Inaugural Flushy Awards Celebrate the People and Places Normalizing the Conversation Around Public Restroom Access
The Flushy Awards, a new annual awards program celebrating excellence in public restroom access, today announced the winners of its inaugural class. The six honorees were selected by a panel of judges from the sanitation equity, accessibility, and public health fields, following an open nomination process that drew submissions from across the country.
The Flushy Awards were created to do something simple but overdue: put a spotlight on the cities, agencies, innovators, and advocates who treat public restroom access as the essential infrastructure it is, not an afterthought. The program is a partnership between a coalition of organizations working on sanitation equity and accessibility, including PHLUSH, Crohn's & Colitis Foundation, Throne Labs, the American Council of the Blind, PERIOD. The Menstrual Movement, the American Restroom Association, and the American Association of People with Disabilities.
"Public restrooms have been treated as an afterthought for far too long, even though they shape whether people can fully participate in public life," said Marisa Miles, ARA Program Manager at American Restroom Association. "The Flushy Awards do something we've wanted to see for years: put a name and a face to the people and organizations actually moving this issue forward. This inaugural class shows what's possible when access is treated as a priority instead of an inconvenience."
Meet the 2026 Flushy Award Winners
Municipality of the Year: City of Ann Arbor, MI
Ann Arbor was honored for treating restroom infrastructure as a flexible civic resource rather than a fixed asset. The city operates one of the highest per-capita deployments of modern public restrooms in the country and creatively redeploys its fleet seasonally, moving units to parks in the summer and to downtown locations to support warming centers in the winter, ensuring residents and vulnerable populations have reliable access year-round
“Winning this award is a meaningful recognition of the thought, coordination, and care that has gone into Ann Arbor’s public restroom efforts,” said Milton Dohoney Jr., City Administrator for the City of Ann Arbor. “It affirms that investing in restroom access is not just an operational decision, but a community value. We’re proud to be recognized, and we hope Ann Arbor’s experience can be useful to other communities considering similar investments.”
Transit Excellence: LA Metro
LA Metro won for the speed and scale of its restroom expansion across one of the nation's largest transit systems, growing from just four restrooms across more than 160 stations to a fleet of 64, roughly one restroom for every three stations. The expansion is transforming a chronic pain point for riders, operators, and people managing conditions like Crohn's disease and IBD into a real amenity.
Innovator Award: NaviLens
NaviLens was recognized for breakthrough accessible wayfinding technology that helps blind and low-vision people independently locate and use public restrooms, and for making that technology free and open-source, removing adoption barriers for cities, transit agencies, and institutions worldwide.
“Access to a restroom is a basic human need, but finding and navigating a public restroom independently can still be a significant challenge for many blind people and people with low vision,” said Martín García-Ripoll López-Briones, Sales & Project Manager at Navilens. “Restroom accessibility is about much more than convenience, it is about dignity, independence, confidence, and full participation in public life. That belief led us to create the free NaviLens Bathroom Kit, making it easy for organizations, businesses, and public agencies to improve restroom accessibility anywhere in the world.”
Advocate of the Year: Councilmember Brianne Nadeau (Washington, DC)
Councilmember Nadeau won by unanimous vote of the judging panel for nearly a decade of persistence on this issue, from passing DC's Public Restroom Access Act in 2018, through the program's early cancellation, to securing funding for the pilot that has now logged more than 145,000 uses and 56,000 unique users with zero safety incidents. Other cities are now citing DC's program as a model for their own.
"I truly appreciate the recognition for the work I have done to expand access to this vital resource in DC. It took many years of pushing and fighting and ultimately identifying the right partner to get this program operating,” said Councilmember Brianne Nadeau. “I’m thrilled that we are expanding to 11 locations in the new fiscal year. I’m proud of this work and of the positive association people in DC now have with public restroom facilities.”
Community Champion: Project for Sanitation Justice
PSJ was honored for its community-driven research and mapping work serving the populations facing the highest barriers to restroom access, including unhoused residents, people with disabilities, transit-dependent workers, and gender-diverse individuals. PSJ's research, including a first-of-its-kind partnership with the California Department of Public Health, is regularly used by policymakers at the local, state, and national level.
"PSJ began during the COVID-19 pandemic as a “pandemic pivot” project in an SDSU service-learning class. Local homelessness services providers asked a simple but urgent question: Where are the public restrooms in San Diego County? At the height of the pandemic, unsheltered San Diegans reported that widespread restroom closures were making survival increasingly difficult,” said Dr. Megan Welsh Carroll, Founding Director, Project for Sanitation Justice. “Students and faculty quickly discovered that there was little reliable public information about public restroom availability, accessibility, or operating hours. In response, PSJ was formed to document, map, and publicly share information about public restroom access across the San Diego region. Today, PSJ works with organizations across California and nationally to document public restroom access and needs and to advance practical, scalable solutions that improve health, dignity, and access for all.”
Breaking the Taboo: Amaya "Papaya" Espinal
Amaya Espinal, winner of Love Island USA Season 7, was honored for speaking openly and publicly about living with Crohn's disease, including a 2026 emergency hospitalization, helping normalize a conversation that millions of people with IBD navigate largely in silence. Her visibility on a major streaming platform brought restroom access into a cultural conversation it rarely reaches.
Looking Ahead
Nominations for the 2027 Flushy Awards will open this winter. Cities, agencies, organizations, and individuals advancing public restroom access are encouraged to visitwww.flushyawards.org for updates and details on how to get involved.
About the Flushy Awards
The Flushy Awards is an annual awards program recognizing the cities, transit agencies, advocates, innovators, and organizations advancing equitable, dignified public restroom access across the United States. Learn more atwww.flushyawards.org.
Media Contact:
Evie Smith Hatmaker