NO SPLASH, NO FLUSH, NO FUSS

- Renee Gannon, Assistant Website Editor

Conserving water while answering nature’s call can be a tricky endeavor.  Up until now, there’s been the age-old saying, “If it’s yellow, let it mellow” but keeping your bathroom from smelling like an outhouse in summer is a challenge in itself.  Until now, that is.  Say hello to the newest in eco-friendly bathroom fixtures: the waterless urinal. 

Urinals have always been delegated to restaurants and commercial bathroom settings, but having a urinal in your home makes a lot of sense; you don’t have to worry about putting the seat down and you save thousands of gallons of water.  Now take that same urinal and make it waterless, and voila! You have a device that saves a remarkable amount of water. 

Kohler has recently developed a sleek and streamlined waterless urinal.  Its tubular design is not only a refreshingly clean take on the more typical blocky designs, but it "virtually eliminates splashing".  Because you don't have to flush it, it saves an astounding 40,000 gallons of water per year.

The "waterless" part of the design works like this: there's a "trapway" at the base of the urinal in which the "sealing liquid" goes; since it's less dense than liquid waste, once your pee goes through, the liquid stays at the top of the trapway, providing a barrier that blocks odors and keeps maintenance to a minimum.  Now if only we could encourage public utility or policy groups to prompt legislation that would make these part of home building codes, think of the massive amounts of water we could be saving!

There’s also the No-Flush™ urinal from Waterless.  Although it’s lacking the sleek design of the Kohler, the concept is the same.  You pee into a normal looking urinal that is missing a flusher. Gravity does its work and the little EcoTrap thing (recyclable) in the urinal containing "Blue Seal" (biodegradable) which keeps the smell where it should be. Plus, it saves 45,000 gallons of water per year.

If you’re into German design, there’s also a waterless model from Duravit called the McDry (they should collaborate with McDonald’s!). The McDry flushless urinal features a sealing liquid that has a specific gravity lighter than urine that keeps odors away. McDry's droplet shape prevents dirt from building up, and is completely contact-free for the user.

According to the New York Times: Eric Cadora, a 42-year-old actor and consultant on green building, installed the Duravit McDry model in the 2,800-square-foot home he shares with his wife in Malibu, CA. He estimates the urinal will save thousands of gallons of water a year. Maintenance, he added, has been minimal; every two months, he flushes the fixture with a gallon of water and then refreshes the sealant. “It never smells,” Mr. Cadora said.

So there you have it.  The next time you find yourself putting the seat down for the umpteenth time or trying desperately to save water without leaving a yellow ring around the toilet bowl, give waterless urinals a chance!