3mo ago

TIL about 1 million liters of urine is spilled onto the bathroom floor every day in the U.S.

www.livescience.com Up to 265,000 gallons of urine splashback could be prevented with snazzy new urinal designs

Researchers have invented two new urinal designs that could significantly reduce the amount of urine splashback, keeping public restrooms cleaner.

Researchers have come up with two new urinal designs to prevent the spillage of "ill-aimed pee."

Good News Everyone @piefed.social

Up to 265,000 gallons of urine splashback could be prevented with snazzy new urinal designs

www.livescience.com /technology/engineering/new-urinal-designs-could-prevent-up-to-265-000-gallons-of-urine-from-spilling-onto-the-floor-each-day

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Uplifting News @lemmit.online

New urinal designs could prevent up to 265,000 gallons of urine from spilling onto the floor each day

www.livescience.com /technology/engineering/new-urinal-designs-could-prevent-up-to-265-000-gallons-of-urine-from-spilling-onto-the-floor-each-day

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Hacker News @lemmy.bestiver.se

New urinal designs prevent 265,000 gallons of urine splashing onto the floor

www.livescience.com /technology/engineering/new-urinal-designs-could-prevent-up-to-265-000-gallons-of-urine-from-spilling-onto-the-floor-each-day

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211 comments

I have to imagine that a fair amount of that is intentional. Some people are just pigs.
- 100%.
  Fun fact: intentionally leaving pee on floors and toilet seats is a lesser-known but frequently-observed associated trait of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD).
  I guess it’s some kind of primal lizard brained “territorial” thing, I dunno.
  
  Two things that rattle around my brain constantly:
  Leave it better than you found it.
  Be mindful of the work you leave for others.
  
  For a while I worked for a shitty little marketing company that had, shall we say, a high frequency of narcissistic traits among the C suite. The men's room in that office was the worst I've ever seen in terms of there always being puddles of piss on the floor.
  Also, a very large majority of the execs didn't wash their hands when they were finished.
  
  I’m struggling to find sources for this but I’d love to learn more. Anything you can share?
  
  Fuckin’ Thomas Kinkade
- I can’t explain the psychology behind it, but this really simple design technique apparently still works.
  Apparently some men need a reason to aim, and will continue doing so even after they realize they’ve been bamboozled.
- *some men...it's pretty difficult to miss the bowl when seated lol
  
  Yeah, but there's plenty of women who don't want to touch the toilet seat so they hover over it and get it dirty as a result.

The waste (╯°□°）╯
- DOGE needs to fix this.
  
  The researchers suggest that if Nautilus was to replace the 56 million urinals across the U.S., around 1 million liters of urine would be prevented from being splashed onto the floor every day. Assuming that the volume of water needed to clean up spilled urine is about 10 times that of the volume of urine, about 10 million liters (2,199,692 gallons) of fresh water could be saved every day, the scientists said.
  The widespread adoption of these urinal designs "would result in considerable conservation of human resources, cost, cleaning chemicals, and water usage, rendering large-scale impacts on modern society by improving sustainability, hygiene, and accessibility," the researchers wrote.
  They should drop everything and do this first thing.
- Think of what we could be doing with that urine if we actually invested in recapturing it.
  
  Not sure if youre sarcastic or not (I was), but there has actually been research if the nutrients in urine can be used as fertiliser and I believe the result was positive.

Sit and pee.
Urinals are disgusting.
/European man
- At home, absolutely.
  Out and about, I ain’t sitting on that nasty seat, thank you very much.
  
  I see someone skipped leg day.
  I just hover over the seat.
- But urinals are so much more efficient both in regards to water usage and time.
  
  They're very efficient at spreading piss all over the place, yes.
- American here. I've started doing this at home and it's just way more sanitary. No more drops off pissy toilet water splashing around.
  When I'm out and about I still pee standing up because public restrooms are filthy.
  
  I sit to pee when I get up in the middle of the night. Don't have to be able to see.
- Stand and pee.
  Sitting is bad.
  /Australian man
  
  … says the guy who wee-wees upside down
  
  Squat and pee.
  Sitting and standing is bad.
  /Italian man
  
  How the fuck else u supposed to water the trees?
- Never not seen a urinal in europe
- I used to be in this camp, but will now avoid public toilets whenever possible. Not having to sit on others pee and butt sweat is pretty awesome.
- Us poor women gotta sit :(
  Well when there are no seat covers, I always lay some TP over the seat before sitting. Or squat without sitting.
  
  First wipe the seat, because people be nasty and leave piss droplets while hovering, then line the TP. Unless there's no toilet seat, then it's hover time.
- People might sit more in your country, but I've never heard of that being particularly European.
  
  https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2023/05/27/survey-many-men-always-sit-when-urinating-40-of-germans-10-americans/
- Are you German? They’re famous for their sitzpinklers
  
  Love that word/anecdote! It’s a good example of a German compound word but it’s also one of the silliest examples of male identity gatekeeping I’ve heard of.

- Is there a third to wipe?
- LEG DAY EVERY DAY

It's because people stand too far back from the urinal, and then shake it like they are trying to kill it. Get in there, and then finish with a gentle squeeze or two and you won't splatter everywhere.
- Or, instead of that, pee sitting down.
  Zero spillage.
  
  Meh then you wasting like 4x the water.
- I once saw a road stop urinal that had a step that forced you to get to the right distance. Genius and simple.

Ultimate solution:
- Gotta paint some faces on there, with puckered lips.

Just thinking how many times I use a urinal a year, multiply by population, the only way this makes sense is with some number of people just pissing onto the floor.
- I can't speak for the whole country but where I work people really do just piss on the floor.
- THIS IS WHY
  https://youtu.be/ejl7vrDUIcs
  If we could all be civil and just sit down to pee, the world would be a better place.
  
  Yes I've been saying this for at least 20 years. Toilets are for sitting and urinals are for standing. My wife also appreciates this.
- You never worked in a school I guess.
- It's 0.003 liters per day per person
  you suck at math
  
  So you think the average person uses a public urinal more than 365 times a year? Also about half the population sit.

My biggest issue is stream strength. I have issues peeing and often dribble or have a split stream.
Yes I've talked to my urologist about it. Several in fact.
No it's not my prostate. No it's not a weak pelvic floor.
I've been suffering with this for almost 20 years and docs still don't know what's going on.
- Sorry about the narrow urethra, Hank.
- How about just sitting down on the toilet? Don't get me wrong it's great you got it checked out but sometimes there are pretty simple solutions.
  
  I knew a guy in high school that absolutely refused to sit to pee. Said every time he had to shit he would stand to pee than turn around and go.
  Some men are just insane
  
  Sitting down isn't always feasible. For example, the bathroom in my house has a round toilet bowl and my cock doesn't fit. The bathroom is too small for an elongated bowl.
  I use a cup for home and at work I just do my best.
  
  I will sit when every toilet is elongated enough to not risk rubbing my junk on the rim.
- I find split steam is more common after very long nights of sex
  
  Yes....my partner knows this all too well. 😅
- I wonder wether they took these kinds of things in account in the research, if it's about collecting to highest percentage of pee possible than I'd argue this matters too. They also say their design is better for children and people in wheelchairs so who knows.

Anyone, whether it's man or woman, who pisses or shits or whatever all over a toilet (i.e. not inside) has quite likely never cleaned a fucking toilet in their life.
Source: Have cleaned toilets, not just my own, before - it has changed me.
- I mean the dick is sometimes arbitrary, even when you make sure as not to have any foreskin in the way of your urethra.
  Especially after fucking.
  But if that happens to me, I'm usually courteous enough to take a hit of paper and at least dab most of it away. But if it's a rank toilet with already piss waving on the floor, no thanks. Sorry. Can't help, the amount of toilet paper in one cubicle isn't enough. And usually the places with that level of hygiene don't necessarily have even a toilet seat, let alone several rolls of paper.
  
  I've started sitting to pee, when at home

Story time.
It honestly feels like about 264,000 gallons of that were spilled at a placed I used to work. I still have no idea who the culprit(s) was.
No kidding, the problem was so bad that building management stepped in and... added chamomile scented floor mats beneath the urinals to catch and deodorize the... ugh (gross)... drippings. It was such a strong smell that it wafted out into the hallway with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. This prompted some of the women in the office to remark at how unfair it was that the men's room was obviously getting all this extra attention. I almost can't describe the mixture of disappointment and disgust on their faces once I explained why this was happening.
I also once had to explain to my wife that the above situation, along with the smell of urinal cakes and most gas-station-restroom deodorizers, are the reason why chamomile tea is a hard pass for me.
- Should build them as wet rooms, periodically a large shower head sprays down the entire room.
  
  Don't forget to flush the bathroom
- Sounds maybe a plumbing problem.

I'm doing MY part!!!
- "Would you like to know more?"

I love the mental image of a government employee having the job of spilling barrels of piss into bathrooms around the nation

I want to know how they estimated that
- Do a small test with a single user, take the amount of spillage then times it by the pissing population and average numbers of wees a day.

Citation needed.
- It is literally in the article: https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/4/4/pgaf087/8098745
- Thank you protestor. I mean it doesn’t even pass the possibility test. 300m people population, 1m litres ≈ 300L per person, per day?
  
  You got your numbers mixed around.
  1m liters/340m men = 0.00294 liters per day
  That's just under 3ml, which is very little, but still seems high. Assuming that not every man is using only the urinal, the number per urinal usage is even higher. But I also don't know american public bathrooms, are they that filthy?
  
  It's the opposite, it would be 1/300 L/person/day, or 1L per 300 persons

Seems like a complete lie. Men might lose a few drops due to the shape of the bowl tops. It's certainly not worth anyone tearing out urinals in the hope some hypothetical piss splashage goes down.
And personally a better goal for urinal design is water reduction. i.e. urinals that use no water, or the bare minimum to flush the piss through.
- It’s a little more than 1/2 a teaspoon, per person. Not exactly hard to believe.
  
  Men aren't dumping half a teaspoon of piss on the floor. Adults are capable of aiming and pissing and the only waste might be where piss strikes a surface and droplets escape the bowl - assuming the bowl was terrible and everyone in the nation pissed at the exact angle to cause droplets to achieve escape velocity. It's an absurd generalisation and also an absurd problem in search of a solution.
- a better goal for urinal design is water reduction. i.e. urinals that use no water
  Don't get me started on those "zero water" urinals. They start to stink and accumulate all kinds of nasty in a matter of weeks. There's a reason we flush all of that stuff down the toilet and into the sewers.
  
  They have them in all the McDonald's around here and I've never noticed any difference in smell. There is a sticker near the urinal saying they save tens of thousands of litres of drinking water per year which I can believe. I think the system has some kind of valve and siphon to prevent smells.

I do like the Nautilus and wish the designed for everyone philosophy was the predominant one. Especially you get one lower level one put in when they could all be functional for everyone.
"The researchers' Cornucopia and Nautilus designs both achieved a significant reduction in urine splashing, with the Cornucopia performing best. However, the Nautilus was considered the most ideal design due to its height, which would allow shorter people — including children or those in wheelchairs — to more easily use it. Its larger gape would also be easier to clean, and would be more accepting of poor aim, and therefore would also be appropriate for use on boats or airplanes."

Someone went to college to figure this out
- lmao

They are fixing a problem that has already been solved. There are already urinals that take this into consideration. The problem is not in the design, it is the implementation. For some reason everybody everywhere installs those awful American Standard urinals that are specifically designed to splatter pee onto your pants.
- For some reason
  $$$

I recall one place I worked. There was a "ofd" older gentleman. I was in the restroom with him at a urinal. He went to the paper towel holder, grabbed about 5 pieces, folded them, and then proceeded to wipe the inside of the urinal out. After he finished, he put the paper towel into one of his back pockets and peed, I think. I didn't stay to watch him finish. I just exited the bathroom and didn't look back.
- You mean "OCD?". Because that a pretty brutal example of the reality versus the fiction of it.

Just... Sit down. Shit in the urinal.

Most of it is in my bathroom when my father-in-law visits.

In space, no one can hear you pee:
- where does all the p go captain? 🫣
  
  It gets recycled. Water is expensive to get to space and most their food is dehydrated.
  
  Its part of the P - drive jet propulsion system.

And I know the employee bathroom where you can find it.

I seriously doubt this number, as it's roughly 7ml for every male in America. I recall from chemistry classes that there are about 10 drops of water in a ml, so that's 70 full-size drops - or a lot more small droplets - hitting the floor during a day of peeing a few times. A lot of it would land on the front of our pants, so it would be super common for guys to have pee liberally splattered all over our pants. That just doesn't happen, unless maybe you did something weird like pee straight at a tile wall. The only way this could be true is if there are a significant number of guys who deliberately pee on the floor. Anybody wanna fess up?
- It's more like 6ml (264172/166100000 gallons), and considering the average man produces between 800 and 2000ml per day, that's like a 0.5% spill rate.
  Also it says nothing about the rate being evenly distributed over the days, it could be that the average guy spills a fraction of a liter in one slip up every couple weeks, not 6ml every single day. Plus the young and elderly likely throw off those averages.
  Lastly, your assumption that most drops go on the pants ignores the whole point of the new design this article is about: the splashback. They claim most of the urine that misses a urinal splashes out in microdroplets.
- I quit caring a while back so I could be driving up the numbers.

I know I, for one, was concerned about all this wasted piss, and I'm glad there's a team of scientists looking into a solution.

Just bring back the old floor mounted types
- Now its all over my shoes.

Which bathroom floor?

I'm skeptical about this.
There are like 170M dudes
\ And say each pee is about 300ml
\ Then 1 in 50 dudes needs to have a full pee on the floor every day.
Ok maybe that's a bit more believable
- If you include the outliers that are incontinent, it makes up for the folks who skip a day or two of floor-pissing.
  Lol there's a sentence I never thought I'd type.
- It probably includes the nearly microscopic droplets that spray out of the urinal.
  
  Have you ever had to clean public restrooms? Nothing microscopic about the drops of splashback.
- As you get older it's no joke what kind of medical conditions can make something so simple end up being so difficult. 1/50 is not even a stretch.
- I'm also dubious on how the number is arrived at.
  
  5ml per man per day misses target.

I personally estimate 85% is from the troughs at Fenway.

Oh yeah, sorry about that.

The Cornucopia looks like it'd be hell to clean
- I saw that name and design and wondered what in the hell that was.
  FFS, just let me pee directly into a drain pipe that goes into the wall. I don't need this fancy art piece as a piss middleman.

Who the heck has counted this?

I'm doing my part.
Edit: Oh fuck, someone else made the same joke as me. Oh well.
- eh, great minds and all that.

Thank God it's not all at once.
- Pee Tsunami!

Spilled makes it sound like someone's clumsily carrying around a barrel of urine throughout public toilets.

It's all me. Sorry. I'll work on my aim.

- Just make the floor sloped into a drain and you don't even need urinals. 🤷🏻‍♂️
  
  Please don't make troughs become a thing again!
  
  hear me out, the bathrooms at my local Dave and Busters pretty much has it so that the urinals are basically embedded into the wall—so instead of an outie, think of it like an innie—and so really, it takes away the vertical precision needed and just feels more natural... just my 2 cents.
- Their research is based on a model like this, the million litre they say is being spilled would be 'saved' by comparing a model like this to their own extra splash resistant design. They say this model has to much backsplash.

I woke up very sick this morning and this is the first thing to make me smile today. Thanks for sharing lol

Been in a pub toilet when a drunk guy came in, whipped it out half way across the room and the dirty fucker started pissing while staggering to the urinal. Just a fucken animal.

How would anyone know that??

Sometimes there’s shit on the outside of the torlet

Now do it for Ireland and measure it in pints.
You can keep it about Americans though.

Does it say which bathroom?

Seeing the amount of micro penis compensating trucks in the US, I'm not surprised

I'd hate to be the guy that has to mop that bathroom

Clearly somebody has a bladder problem.

Poor floor

Urine Georg,

Where is this bathroom so I can avoid it?

Am I the only one thinking what's the big deal? Bathroom floors are usually hard surfaces and have a drain. Im not a urinal user, so take that for what it's worth.
- The people who did the research do think it is a big deal, and it might be exactly the reason why you don't use a urinal (although that could also have to do with your body parts, I don't know you).
  [...] the researchers wrote in the study. "The use of urinals often results in significant splatter (splashback) as urine splashes upon impact with the urinal generating droplets which travel back onto the floor and user."
  This splashback is a breeding ground for bacteria, resulting in bad smells in public restrooms and the potential for the spread of diseases.
  "The surfaces of urinals have significantly higher concentrations of bacteria than traditional toilets, with surrounding floors having the highest level," the researchers added.
  This high level of spillage of urine requires frequent cleaning, which uses a large volume of water, is unpleasant work for custodial staff and is very expensive.
- I don't want to have to stand in someone elses piss puddle while taking a leak or worse yet slip and fall in it.
  
  So pee all over the floor first so it's at least your own piss puddle.
- I used to work at an office where about 200 people shared two urinals, and by lunchtime the entire floor around the urinals would be sticky and brown from the continued cycles of people walking through and adding to the stray spray.

The CYBER urinal will revolutionize this, fertilize homeless camps and change life as we know it. Act now!

211 comments