Flushless Urinals.

If you worked in the same building with these things everyday, you would think a lot about them too. Above each one, so for dudes, as you are using this thing, you are staring at a sign stating:


I struggle with math in general, math is the so called difficult. It is even more difficult when I am holding my breath. What this picture doesn't capture is the wretched stink emanating from these urinals. I am sure that the oil they use in these in place of water is made from sorrow, disappointment and the lost souls of children.

Back to the math thing though, Out of the gate I am troubled when I say, there are 52 weeks in a year, and I multiply 52 by 7 and get 364. I thought there were generally held to be 365 days in a year, but whatever, nothing is perfect, not even math. So, we will figure that since I made these calculations, they are all rough, like my personality.

This, as previously established, is a state school, which means take the normal amount of work days a year, roughly 260 (52 x 2=104 weekend days, -364ish days a year) and subtract about 12 from that for the holidays we celebrate. The week off at the end of the year, the 2 days around thanks giving, Martin Luther King Day, President's Day, Spring Day, 4th-o-July, it adds up. So, we are all here roughly 258 days a year.

I don't know how much water the average urinal uses when you flush it. I am going to guess somewhere around 1/3 of a gallon. I seriously doubt it is that much, it is prolly far less, but taking a third makes the math more difficult and me far more prone to making a mistake, which is good times.

First, I will take 40,000 and divide it by 258 to get a number I can work with, you know, to sound smart. On my calculator, I get either .00645 or 155.lotsofothernumbers. I am going to go with the 155 because that sounds more like what I suspected. So, if a regular urinal flushed a gallon at a time, which it certainly does not, I would have to flush one 155 times a day, every work day, to use up 40,000 gallons a year. But more math to get closer to a real estimate. 155 x 3 = 465. 465 times a day a urinal would have to flush to use that much water. Seems unlikely so far. Now for the time trials....

I timed how long it takes me to use a urinal. I will say up front, I don't really get stage fright, however, I don't imagine I am the fastest person on the planet when it comes to unfastening the apparatus holding my pants closed. That's right, I said apparatus, and that's all you need know. Also, I let the timer go a few seconds long because I didn't need the other guy in there spreading rumors. So, all that to say individual results may vary. Rounding off for slightly easier math, I came up with one minute.

That means that in a 9 hour day, there is only 1 hour and 15 minutes when each urinal is not in constant use. This is an office building, not the stadium at the super bowl....

*cough cough bullshit cough* 40,000 gallons of year my ass. My scientific conclusion is, we are not saving enough water to make the stench worth it. Why not just fill urinals with salt water, that isn't potable anyways, and then maybe the bathroom would smell kinda like the ocean. It would make me wanna talk like a pirate.