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Flash no-flush urinals spark a lav affair

By Tim Dick
June 14, 2004

The end of the flushing urinal is nigh. If proposals before four Sydney councils are accepted, the water guzzlers will flush no more.

Woollahra, Waverley, Manly and Randwick councils are considering swapping the water now used in public urinals for small new-age cubes that promise to stop the smell, keep the urinals clean and save 70,000 to 100,000 litres of water for each urinal every year. Made from bacteria, the blocks are said to keep urinals cleaner and less smelly.

Woollahra councillor Tanya Excell, whose motion at tomorrow's council meeting proposes the move, said she did not know of any disadvantages to using the blocks, except for "the emotional angst of males when they go in and can't flush".

Desert Ecosystems, the South Australian company that makes them, claims "a blend of naturally occurring microbes ... removes the cause of urinal odours without the use of water" and reduces stains on urinals.

And, although few would want to, Cr Excell says, "you can actually eat the blocks".

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They are being trialled in two public toilets by Manly Council. Paul Smith, its water cycle management officer, said water use in one beachside toilet block - which has toilets as well as a urinal - had been cut by 45 per cent since their introduction.

The water bill for the toilets is $6000 a year, he said, compared with about $400 a year for the microbe blocks. "We haven't had any negative reaction or any reaction at all, to be honest," he said.

If a motion by Waverley councillor Mora Main is passed tomorrow, it will mean a successful trial at a beach toilet block could be extended to all 30 public urinals in the area.

Cr Excell admitted it would be harder to save water in women's toilets, although it might be possible to dedicate some toilets to "number ones, and some to number twos".