A Florida school has learned a hard lesson about green technology and green math.
The plan was to save water, and the planet, by installing waterless urinals in the boys washrooms. Each green urinal would save the school $100 per year in water utility bills.
But things went wrong. Horribly wrong:
Students at a high school in Boca Raton, Florida, must step over rivers of urine and endure the stench of rancid waste after a plan to bring ‘green’ waterless urinals into bathrooms backfired. School officials at Spanish River High School thought they had found an environmentally-friendly, cost-saving solution for their bathrooms when they installed Falcon Waterfree urinals in their boys bathrooms.
But with no water moving through the school’s copper pipes to flush the urine into the sewer system, the waste produced noxious gases that ate through the metal, leaving leaky pipes that allowed urine to drip into walls and flow onto floors.
‘It was pretty disgusting,’ school board chairman Frank Barbieri told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. ‘The girls had to step over a river of urine. I could smell it as soon as I walked into the hallway.’
via Green pee « The Daily Bayonet.
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And the Greens tell us they fully understand the chemistry of ocean acidification? Right.
Exactly the same thing happened in our Council building just last year. They took out the old flushing system and installed a waterless urinal. I can’t remember the company name.
I’m not sure of story, but the piping leaked into the wall cavity behind, and after a month it stunk so bad I couldn’t enter the room. At great expense it was all pulled out, piping replaced and flushing urinals installed again.
On the other hand; Council has been installing waterless composting toilets in parks and isolated places which work really well. No smell, and a long maintenance period to clean out the composting bin. Those things do work well.
I am a professional civil engineer, and have designed a number of sewers, Normally, the design getting to the sewer is the drain going from a toilet was 3 inches in diameter. The diameter through the air seal was 2 1/2 inches. This pipe went through a sweep to a 6 inch diameter lateral . . . the main pipe all of the sewerage and used water.
The slope of this pipe in 1/4 of an inch per foot, about a 2% slope (2 feet per hundred feet)
For a lateral to continue to drain properly, the flow of water has to be deep enough to float the feces down the lateral, and fast enough to scour the bottom of the lateral of solids. Otherwise, the drainage backs up, causing all drainage to stop.
Whenever proper engineering is not followed, the results will be bad news.
A well designed toilet would have a double flush . . . one for fluids only, about 1 gallon, and a second flush of 3 1/2 gallons for solids.
Having to flush 3 or four times at about a gallon per flush uses far more water than a sensibly designed double flush toilet, and plungers would not be necessary at all. And the laterals wouldn’t have to be cleaned out, a costly process.
At least the experience was educational. Hopefully the students learned to always “try before you buy” in their own lives.
They also learned that what they’re taught in school isn’t always true. Let’s hope they remember that when bombarded by “green” propaganda.
When I was younger and had to go bad, my mom/aunt would say “pee in the garden… it helps the veggies”. I didn’t understand but did it anyway. I seems I was ahead of the curve all along, “greening” the environment long before it was cliche to be “green”. Somebody should have smacked some sense into those school officials as they were growing up – it appears they needed it.
If you want to save water the best way is to use water to flush but reclaim it from the waste stream and put it back into the water supply. With modern technology waste water can efficiently be processed so that it is completely safe to drink. The main reason why environmentalists don’t like this approach is that the Green movement is infested with homeopathists.
Rob Crawford says:
February 6, 2012 at 9:04 am
The first sewers were built to drain the Forum, and then the Circus Maximus, both being swampy, low-lying areas. Adding the baths, palaces, and very high-end homes came later.
Most homes in ancient Rome weren’t tied to the sewer system, and used a combination of pit latrine and urine jar. The urine was collected for use in bleaching cloth, and ISTR you either had to pay a fine if you didn’t collect it, or the cloth-makers paid you for what they collected. Or both, depending on the time; “ancient Rome” covers hundreds of years.
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There is evidence that the wealthy first floor apartments in some insulae also enjoyed running water and toilets. However, you are otherwise correct, except that the public also had access to public communal toilets where up to 40 people shared the pleasure of emptying their bowels or bladders in full view of each other. For hygiene, a runnel of flowing water set into the floor ran a foot or so in front of the toilets so patrons could wash their hands as the need arose.
The full elaboration of the Roman sewer system was more a consequence of Rome’s 11 aqueducts and not simply a product of draining the Forum and Circus Maximus. If anyone wants to read an authoritative account of Roman plumbing and sewage systems, I would recommend reading A. Trevor Hodge, Roman Aqueducts and Water Supply (2nd edition 2002).
Costs $100 per year? What are they flushing with, Perrier? Take the number of school days per year, multiply by 3 for a kid with a small bladder and assign any reasonable flush that comes to mind. That gets the usage per student per year. Look at your home water bill. Surprise!!!
Why else do you suppose the rest of us are referred to as peons?? 😉
Our Rottweiler liked to grace the front lawn with his largesse. As long as I could keep him from picking a favorite spot, the increased lawn growth was amazing! All well and good, until I realized I was cutting the lawn about 20-30% more often. >:-(
I live one county under in Broward. There’s Agenda21 in atleast the neighboring city; I haven’t checked recently to see if it’s creeped into mine. It’s all just based in stupidity and lack of common sense. This filters up thru each generation and cumulatively gets worse.
Toilets that doesn’t dilute or push waste, Washers that don’t clean clothes, Dryers that need more time…all in the name of energy efficiency. Might as well glue wood together instead of expending energy on nails/screws/bolts.
“Each green urinal would save the school $100 per year in water utility bills.”
Has anyone thought of the economics of this? This is only replacing the boy’s urinals and they are hyping water savings? How many boys, especially in school, flushes their urinals? And urinals are only 1/3 of the number of body-waste handling units. Think of all the girl toilets that do get flushed, even when just pee-d in.
Confirmation that the toilets in question, from Falcon Waterfree Technologies are indeed the waterless toilets associated with Al Gore
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/06/ff_waterless_urinal
Chris Shaker
There is a good reason why engineer exist, they make the bridge between utopic theories and the cold and harch realty of nature. The practical knowledge they (shall) posses in multiples field is what make them say so often: “Don’t think it will work” or “If its not broken don’t fix it” because most of the time they will inherit the responsability “to make the impossible work” or else appear to be incompetent.
Human urine is normally around neutral pH and most importantly for the “owner” sterile… Most of the time, it is well past the saturation point for many dissolved solid it contain and the human body rely heavily on presence of anti-crystallisation factors like citrate or magnesium and be within a specific pH range.
I’m quite sure many visitors of this remarquable blog had, actually has, or in a not so far away future, will encounter a phenomenon inside their “personnal plumbing” (I mean their urinary system) called by physician ‘calculus’. Patients tend to call it: Pain, trouble & lots of pain… Any experienced subjects will know what I mean!
There are multiples causative factors for calculus creation but one of the most worrying is bacterial infestation of the urinary system (read it as urinary tract infection). There exist a large variety of different bugs able to infect the urinary tract, but my favorite in the context of the subject of this discution are the ones we call ‘urease positive’. These ones really deserve attention, on chronic patients (catheterized), urinary infection will evolve throught multiples “flora” or ecosystem of competing & sometime cooperating bacteria but the final “steady state” will most often involve antibiotic resistant urease producing mix of bacteria typically countaining ‘Proteus mirabilis’.
Proteus mirabilis is a truly remarquable bugs, not that I like this nasty guys, but this is a true “survivor”, an ennemy you must learn to respect and NEVER underestimate. It has the capability to organize in group (swarm). Ask a microbiologist what its like when P. mirabilis “decide” to take a walk on the culture plate! Also and most worrying is that this organism is capable of producing H2S gas, a very very toxic & unforgiving chemical. The biofilm it form will typically protect (shield) inner bacteria from eradication attempt like antibiotics (even antibiogram selected working ones) & chemical desinfectant. When the threat disapear, one of these littles bugger will emerge & recreate the infection…
For those not familiar w/t the effect of urease, this enzyme breakdown the urea present in the urine & produce ammonia, thus sending pH straight to the roof (alkaline). That way it inhibit growth of others very common bacteria like E. coli who need acidic condition to exist. I’m sure many of you are aware of the effect of alkaly on copper & brass. H2S react also w/t these metallic compounds, if not possibly straight to the air & into the lung of these poor students that will learn quite hardly the lesson directly from mother nature…
For those saying ABS piping is the solution, remember that passage of urine into high pH regime, effect of absence of water dilution and temperature drop from 37degC to something lower will produce a couple of nasty precipitate like Struvite, Amorphous Phosphate & Calcium Oxalate. Be advised that some of the amorphous phosphate if exposed to minutes quantity of fluor will produce the fluorided version of Hydroxyapatite that will not redissolve even in acidic condition: This is the same exact mecanism that make your teeth more decay resistant when exposed to fluor!
In conclusion, the ABS piping will suffer as it age the same faith as our “internal plumbing”, calculus formation & the docs won’t tell you but fluor will play the same trick it do on your teeth, make the calculus a lot more resistant to acidity…
It seems like the company selling this product has some explaining to do . . .
As do the school officials who bought it.
ho to turning $100.00 into a half a million Dollar. Ups, I forgot the minus sign.
rg
I’ve seen reports that many sewage systems, where the “low flow” toilets have been mandated for some years, have to redirect large amounts of fresh water directly into the sewers to keep them flowing — otherwise the whole system clogs, with very unpleasant results.
So many bad things could be (have been) avoided by taking the “conclusion” of greenie proposals and repeatedly asking, “And then what?”, and insisting on a fully justified numerical answer.
‘It was pretty disgusting,’ school board chairman Frank Barbieri told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. ‘The girls had to step over a river of urine. I could smell it as soon as I walked into the hallway.’
So that’s what they mean by “Going Green”!
@potwater savers
it would seem to me that you live under the impression that if you do not use the water, it somehow stays “there”, and if you do use it, it goes “somewhere” where it can be reached no more.. I understand that one would wnat to reduce water consumption in say- Vegas, but this is NOT a concern for most places on Earth. Did you notice this strange thing that falls from the sky every so often?
“Then we consume water, and it is true that it is not actually consumed, however it is altered in that it now filled with contaminants which must be removed before the water can be returned to the environment. ”
you do realize that the amount of contaminants stays the same? and that the “treated contaminants” are likewise going to end up somewhere? as far as household sewage goes, most of it is biodegradable.. (human excrements and such). i.e. urea is used in agriculture :))) so it is actually much better if i take bath without much soap than save water and use a lot of shampoo (although all these things are almost completely degradable these days).. or if i do my laundry at higher temps with more water and less washing powder than vice versa..ah yes, but than there is the evil carbon
Lolo, I’m a skeptic when it comes to AGW. You are preaching to the converted when you sarcastically remark about he evil carbon.
But it still doesn’t make sense to waste water resources. You are right that the contaminant loading is the same, but that doesn’t remove the treatment step. If 1000 gallons of water are used and flushed down our sewers, then 1000 gallons (minus system losses of course) need to be treated at the sewage treatment plant. If 10000 gallons are used, then 10000 gallons need to be treated. Which do you think consumes more energy, and more resources.
Anthony has written here many times that while he doesn’t think we need to be concerned about CO2, something that we all agree on, he doesn’t feel that being wasteful is a good thing. I have read his articles where he has converted lighting in his house to LED bulbs to not only save money, but to avoid wasting energy.
The “green” movement is incredibly flawed in countless ways, however that doesn’t change the fact that it is shortsighted and unnecessary to continue wasteful practices when perfectly viable alternatives exist.
If a toilet, and our sewer systems can be fully functional using 1.6 gallons per flush, why on earth would it be a good idea to use 3.5 gallons? If you can properly light a room using 12 watt LED bulbs, it doesn’t make sense to use 60 watt incandescent bulbs.
Not everything that works to make the world a better place is the devil simply because it is more friendly to the environment. The unquestioned hatred for anything labelled “green” without due consideration is folly in my opinion.
I would be interested in seeing these reports. It seems to me that there might be more to the story than is being told.
Regardless of the use of low flow toilets, people are still having showers, running the dishwasher, doing laundry, brushing their teeth, etc. There are many many water uses that do not add solids to the sewage which would assist in flushing the system.
I would be looking at things like, what has the rainfall in the area been like? has there been a drought? Has that caused there to be blanket water usage restrictions to be enacted? What type of sewer system is it? what are the pipes made of? are there any existing blockage points that would be susceptible to problems if there were a reduction in total flow, such as a crack in old sewer lines where the shift in the pipes and intrusion of soils has created a bottleneck in the system? What grades are the sewage pipes installed at? are there any zero slope locations due to faulty installation or differential settlement over time?
There are so many reasons that a sewage system could be having issues. The installation of low flow toilets is more likely that not, a very small part of the equation.