Attack of the No Flush Urinals

Published on June 8, 2007 By pseudosoldier In Health & Medicine

While official reports seem to be overall favorable towards the idea (and of course it's very "hip" to conserve water now, isn't it?), I can only speak to my personal experiences in this matter.

No flush urinals stink.

I'm certainly not the only one that thinks so: reference Link to see what some at the University of Iowa had to say. "Unusual," "they smell," "an unappealing nuisance," the custodians absolutely hate cleaning these toilets."

And, again, while water conservation is one of those hot topics, this blog Link calls into question the cost effectiveness of these sorts of conservation steps. Yes, portions of the article smack of the "carbon credit" arguments, but I felt compelled to include it when they included a link to a study done at my alma mater.

But here's my actual complaint about the product: it stinks. Bad.

Look at the mechanics of it: Link.

Now, this is better than we (bored colleagues of mine and I) had feared; not being particularly sanitationally-engineer-minded, we only thought of two ways to do this. 1) A straight pipe to the sewer or 2) a standard water trap... full of urine. It's scary that we're closer than we had thought possible. Now, there is that top cover of blue fluid (mixture of alcohols and mineral oils... which sounds ridiculously flammable) that is supposed to keep the urine below it, which would also mask the smell. All this seems to do in our building is give the occasional blue/green tint to the urine that flows out of the drain while you're relieving yourself.

I was told today that every building in the immediate area I work in on base that has these urinals has requested them to be replaced with standard flush urinals. They STINK! and everyone knows it. Actually, I've found one real-life flush urinal in an adjacent building. The waterless stank of our latrines hasn't driven me to take the walk over there, but I do visit it whenever I'm in that building, even if I don't use it. It's like seeing an old friend.

But, then, the smell in our recycled-air-ventilation building today wasn't the urinals. Near as the cute SSgt at the front desk could figure it, it's the open floor traps in the male latrine. The solution: to pour hot water down them to "settle the gas"... the sewage gas.

So, a straight pipe to the sewer wouldn't be much of a downgrade, I guess."

Comments

amandapearl2

on Jun 08, 2007

Makes me glad I'm a girl.

MasonM

on Jun 09, 2007

Seems like a pretty bad idea to me.

I do have a suggestion that should reduce the odor though. Ice.

Fill the urinals with ice. Many bars do it and it does help.

Big Fat Daddy

on Jun 09, 2007

The good ole Army has always been ahead of its time...we had waterless urinals years ago...waterless toilets, too!...in the field.

SSG Geezer

on Jun 10, 2007

I just wish they would hose them down with a spray of water once or twice a day, but I was told that the blue goo wouldn't deal with that very well, so we get the bog of eternal stench on a daily basis. The ones near our office aren't bad but they don't recieve anywhere near the patronage of those near our classrooms. Yuch! I guess that's what we get for living in a desert.

Texas Wahine

on Jun 10, 2007

Ditto what Amanda said.

singrdave

on Jun 12, 2007

I have used them before, but thankfully I haven't worked in close proximity to any. Dude, yuck... they are nasty to smell and worse to think at any length about.

Poison5

on Jun 12, 2007

sorry the pick is so big.

Mens toilets smell with or without flush urinals because of all the splashes and poor aim, ewwwwwwwwwwww

Sorry lads, it is true, smeeeeeellllly

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