If you are in charge of commercial or institutionalfacilities, you probably already know that there are federal regulations thatmandate the amount of water per flush that is allowed for urinals. But what youmay not know is that almost two-thirds of the urinals in use today use morewater than the standards allow. That accounts for several million units in usewasting water with every flush. While you are unlikely to get a visit from theeco-police, you are wasting a tremendous amount of water and money.
The US govement has established that the allowable amountof water per flush should be one gallon for commercial and institutionalurinals. Unfortunately, not all operate at this level of performance. This ismainly due to the age of the urinals in operation. Businesses have chosen notto replace older, and much less efficient, models until they have no choice.But by doing so, they are leaving pre-standards urinals in production that canexpend as much as 500% more water than the standards allows. This costs moneyand is bad for the environment.
When businesses take the initiative to replace olderfixtures with newer one gallon flush models, they can save a lot of money andwater and get the same operating level as before. The key to ensuring that thewater savings are realized as expected is to choose a model that has theWaterSense label established by the Environmental Protection Agency. Theseurinals use The Low-temperature Drying Equipment Manufacturers a sparse half gallon of water per flush which far exceeds thefederal standards.
How much can switching to these urinals actually impactwater usage in commercial facilities? That depends on the traffic in thebuilding and the actual usage, of course. However, the EPA has assigned anannual savings estimate of about 4,600 gallons per urinal. Multiply that numberby the number of urinals in some larger facilities and the savings will make asignificant impact on the monthly utility bill. Then if you multiply thatnumber by the estimated number of non-compliant urinals in operation and thetotal water waste is staggering .
If your company wants to do the sociallyresponsible thing and conform to federal guidelines, it is pretty easy to do.Any urinal that has received a WaterSense rating will deliver on the watersavings promised and allow you to save money while having the satisfaction ofknowing that your company is helping conserve our planet's most preciousresource. Yes, it will cost money to purchase and install these new urinals,but they will pay for themselves over time.