Public restrooms support a universal need. Most businesses will only allow paying customers to use their restrooms, so if you’re out on the town and don’t want to spend money just to use a restroom, you’d better hope that you can find one open to the public. However, for a variety of reasons, many people are often against installing public restrooms in parks and other public areas.
One of the main reasons for this is the cost of maintaining a public restroom. Aside from maintenance and cleaning costs, there is the utility cost, especially to pay for water. The average toilet or urinal uses between one and three gallons of water per flush. When a restroom is open to the public, that can add up quick. Luckily, many cities around the world are finding an eco-friendly solution to this problem.
Waterless urinals are an innovation that might save public urinals from going extinct. Waterless urinals do not need to flush, so they need no water to operate. When urine enters a waterless urinal, it simply drains through a grate in the bottom into a trap that holds the urine and keeps it from coming into contact with any air, so there is no odor. It’s estimated that waterless public urinals would save about $225 in utilities per unit compared to conventional urinals.
While this doesn’t address all the problems of a public restroom, cities are taking it in stride. Several cities, including Paris, Amsterdam, and San Francisco, have created public urinals that are not only waterless, but also open air! In some places, they’re even taking the eco-friendly aspect a step further and harvesting the urine to create natural compost that is then used around the city in flower gardens.