Bruce
I want to hear more about waterless urinals and why you say not green. I may have my own thoughts on subject but want to hear yours.
Dan Bentler
I didn't say they weren't green, just not a good idea in an industrial plant. To those who aren't familiar with the concept, I will try to explain. You basically remove the water that is used as a flushing mechanism and sewer gas trap and install a urine trap. Now the urine is the sewer gas trap. To eliminate the urine odor, you must pour on this blue liquid. It is very similar to a vegetable oil.
This "oil" floats on top of the urine to "trap" the odor. Every use - in theory - the urine goes into the drain and the oil floats on top of the new waste.
The problem starts with the fact that a small amount of the oil goes down the drain with the urine. After a certain amount of uses, there is not enough oil to completely cover the urine and the odor starts.
The problem continues with the lack of education on how to maintain these units. When the smell starts, many people go get a cup of water and dump down the urinal. This fixes the smell (temporarily) because it has now washed down the urine. Next use starts the cycle over again.
The other problem with this urinal is there is no wash system to make sure all the urine is out of the basin. Some is inevitable left on the porcelin and never gets washed down (maybe Rain-X would help). The janitors, seeing an opportunity to clean something, goes and gets some cleaner (yes - even the cleaner the manufacturer says to use does break down a little of the oil) to clean out the urinal. Unfortunately, this cleaner also has a tendancy to break down any oil that is floating on top of the urine (if there is any left because no one dumped a cup of water in it). This breakdown then cause even more of the oil to be flushed away leaving nothing to trap the urine odor.
And the final problem is one that has more to do with people then the design. That is that someone (or many ones) will spit their gum in the urinal (I know, some guys are just nasty). This tends to clog up the small slit that is used to remove the urine and drain it into the trap.
Like all things (even plc programs), the initial design leaves a lot to be desired. There should have been some improvements before we replaced all of them. I can think of things like an indicator to determine if oil is still there so you can add some if needed. If you just add some anyway and there is too much oil, then the urine will not sink to the bottom very effectively. Cleaners need to be improved along with a system to wash the remaining droplets off the bowl.
Finally, with all this new innovations, many of the public water and sewer systems need to be re-evaluated to determine changes necessary to their system. When the new low-flow toilets went into wide use, many of the sewer systems weren't designed to handle this "super sludge" that lacked the water that used to come down the pipes with it.
Gee we could eliminate the urinals altogether if everyone just drank enough water to meet that which is "boiled off" in perspiration. Since this is a green effort we do not need to bother ourselves with minor details such as the kidney needs a little water to carry off the wastes - after all the prime function of kidney is to maintain proper water balance in body and secondary purpose is waste excretion.
Not only do we save water on the waste end but we save on the input end also. Green is good even though a lot of people might start looking a little yellow.
Hmmm a slogan
stop drinking excess water and save a whale!!!!
may even restore the spotted owl!!!!
Dan Bentler
Dan Bentler
not sure if this is directed at me or not. If so, I don't understand where this is coming from.
As a final thought on this subject, since I am no expert in waste treatment, these are more general observations. The water used to flush any bodily waste is not "lost" forever. Most of the time, it is returned back to the same system is was taken from in better condition. In addition, many waste treatment facilities must use a lot of water in their process to treat this waste. If it is not on the flushing end, then it has to be added at the treatment end. Is there really any benefit if you save 40,000 gallons per year (as claimed on the waterless urinals) but the waste treatment has to add 40,000 gallons to treat it?
But being a world-class nanny-state, someone in Augusta felt that we would be much better off to install waterless urinals in the rest areas.
Hey I'm in Augusta - Georgia that is. Maybe it has something to do with Augusta.
