I just encountered my first 'waterless urnal' in an inn in Gananaque, Ontario, and all I can tell you is this thing made the entire room smell like any back alley in New York City on a sweltering hot summer day. These things STINK! In my opion, the water 'wasted' by flushing is WELL worth it. If these things are installed in the busy airports or bars in the States, we'll be green alright, when we leave that particular room.

If you love your customers, you won't get one of these.

This sounds like the most unsanitary not to mention smelly thing I have heard of yet!! Outhouse come to mind?? Sounds like technology is going backwards!

you explained where the urine goes but how do the solids get down the sewer pipe if there is no water as I am not a pro plumber but what going to move the solids down the pipe.do you not need water to make it move down the sewer pipe.
ronald buffi

I've had one in my basement bar/home theater for two years now and I haven't had any problems with maintence or smell. My wife actually likes it as there are no more "accidents" on the toilet seat. I got the idea after being out on Cape Cod beach public bathroom that had about 1/2 a dozen of them. They didn't stink either. As for the solids....this is a urinal...if you're peeing out solids you need to see a doctor!!

I agree that this cannot be the way to save money...but I do have to ask...what solids?

Though I am female and thus do not use urinals, it is my understanding that there would be no reason for "solids" to be deposited in a urinal. I think that's why there are stalls with toilets in mens' rooms. Either way, I am not convinced that waterless urinals are worth the water savings! Let's splurge and use that water!

my only real question is: how green is this kind of urinal, really? Yes, it saves water at the point of use, but how expensive are the various chemicals required and how much water is used in their production and how much other pollution is generated in their manufacture and shipping?

I fear that on this one I'm a skeptic.

Bryan

The waterless urinal should not have to deal with solids of any kind, that’s what commodes are for. I am an aerospace engineer at Raytheon in Colorado and we have had these units in place for over 2 years. They are not smelly or unsanitary if properly maintained.

Ronald,
Only urinals are waterless - not standard toilets. There shouldn't be any solids. I once worked with a guy who sounded like he was trying to pass a stone, but that should be done at home anyway!

My only experiences with a waterless urinal have been in a public Dallas city building and the ammonia fumes and stench will nearly bring you to your knees. The facility otherwise appears to be frequently cleaned and maintained. My porta-potty experiences have all been much more pleasant.

If you read the article, these type of urinals require DAILY maintenance. In most busy airports and high-traffic public bathrooms the cleaning/maintenance is usually about four times a day. I'm not a fan of the "no-flush" (low-flush) toilets, but these urinals actually work if maintained. And as for the "solids", use a urinal screen to keep the cigarette butts out.

Dear ed,
I found your article on the waterless urinal very interesting but you forgot to mention where can you buy one and how much is the cost?

It's a urinal, not a toilet, there shouldn't be any solids.....

This unsanitary insanity has got to stop.
What good is a few gallons of water savings when infectious disease spreads like wildfire?
I am 49 years old. People my age don't give a damn about water savings, we will be dead in a few years anyway. What we do want is a healthy, clean environment to spend the rest of the time we have left.

This is not a toilet. No solids should ever be put in a urnal. Most public men's rest rooms have at least one toilet and one or more urnals
Properly matained waterless urnals do work and are odor free.

Unfortunitly in the liquid seal waterless urnals, the seal is often removed when someone dumps a drinks in the urnal thus creating the odor issue and extra cost to replace the seal. Most seals are only about a half to three quarters of a inch of liquid.
As Ed said "With the resealing process, a small bucket of water is poured into the urinal to wash out the old seal and any urine deposits, then new trap seal fluid is simply poured back into the trap and you're good to go."
R cloud

As with any device, if they're installed and maintained properly, there's no detectable odor. The technology is really quite simple. Here are links to video clips that show how they work:
http://www.falconwaterfree.com/video/default.htm

Who deposits "solids" in a urinal? Really...

so, 40,000 gallons saved.
what is the environmental impact of the liquid plug? is that a petrolium product? how about the bottle and the shipping cost to get it to the place of use?

uh.......Ronald.........Urinals are not for solids!?! Liquids only!
Here in Rochester our water works dept. built a new building totally green. They reused the bricks from the old building, BIG windows facing the West, triple pane windows throughout, and waterless urinals. I don't know what type they are, but they have never smelled at all!

Ed,

While it is great to save water, waterless urinals have had their failures. Many architects and engineers now refuse to specify them. Major corporations such as Toyota have installed them and removed them due to the maintenance issues and odors. Toyota pulled out over 400 at their facilities in Southern California. Many universities refuse to install them any more.

You mentioned that a small amount of water is poured in the trap. WRONG. No water is to be poured in except when you clean the trap assembly. At many facilities, the cleaning staff is used to dumping a bucket of water into a urinal after they brush it clean. A gallon of water will wash out all of the trap sealant. Then you get the odors if the trap is not refilled. That also drives up the maintenance costs of the waterless urinals.

The other factor that severely impacts waterless urinals is that they will plug a drain line in nine months unless that drain line has a water using fixture upstream. This has been documented worldwide.

Within the water conservation community the majority of the people say High Efficiency Urinals are the future. They do not need a trap sealant, they can be cleaned like a standard urinal, they don't plug the drain lines, and they use as little as one pint of water per flush.

Last, in order for a waterless urinal to save 40,000 gallons per year it would need to replace a 1 gallon urinal which is flushed 40,000 times. It is unlikely that in many public libraries (open 6 days a week) a urinal will be used 128 times per day.

Urine has dissolved salts from the body. Unless they are flushed often enough from a urinal, they will be deposited as a hard scale on the drain lines eventually blocking it. Also they will build up on the urinal surfaces. They cause the odors.