On peeing in the shower

21 Mar 2007

Got questions about the environment? Ask Umbra.

Dear Umbra,

Is it suitable to justify peeing (urinating) while showering in order to save a toilet flush? Any health issues to your feet or shower algae growth?

Luke Whistler
Brisbane, Australia

Dearest Luke,

If I told you that my editor picked not only this question, but also the previous question about organic likker, what would you guess about her interests? It's party time upstairs at Grist when she's around. Maybe she can test out the efficacy of urine for ending shower mold in the Grist Test Bathroom. And you, down there in Australia, drinking your Foster's and peeing in the shower -- I have a lot of questions for you. Do you use gallons or liters? Does your toilet flush backwards?

The queen of wishful tinkling.

Photo: iStockphoto

The crux of your question, from a water-saving vantage point, will rest on the gallons-per-minute flow of your shower and the gallons per flush of your toilet. Here is where our questions truly begin -- not only for Luke from Brisbane, but for all of you curious about justifying your ablutionary micturition.

First, how often do you flush? Remember -- and this is a key point -- it doesn't need to be every time. You can gauge your water usage by checking your toilet, which probably has a gallon per flush number printed upon it. If you can't find such a number, assume six gallons per flush on an older toilet, 1.6 gallons on a low-flow model (a gallon is 3.78 liters).

Ask Umbra continues below

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Now: what is the per-minute flow of your shower? All of us -- renters, owners, anyone able to own the computer upon which they read these words -- should have inexpensive, low-flow showerheads that deliver about two gallons per minute. But maybe we haven't bothered to get one and our shower still delivers five to 10 gpm. If you don't know, run the shower into a bucket for 10 seconds, measure the amount of water you collect, then do some simple math. Then, next time you are peeing in the shower, take note whether the peeing adds time to the experience: Are you scrubbing and peeing simultaneously, or just spacing out? If peeing is a stand-alone activity, you need to time how long it takes you to pee. Two minutes in a five gpm shower would be 10 gallons of hot water flushing your pee down the drain (and a very full bladder, but you get my point).

How do we add the energy embodied in hot water to this vexing dilemma? Sigh. Do you begin to grasp the enormous debts my party girl of an editor owes me?

I just spent a few moments trying to get you a kilowatt-hour per gallon of hot water number (0.13), but, upon reflection, that's a red herring. Obviously, if you are going to waste any water at all, it's better to waste cold water than hot water. So from an energy-saving (and climate) perspective, standing in the shower to pee is a poor idea unless you are efficiently multitasking (lathering plus peeing). And remember, not flushing is a good option. That's my two cents. A third cent: pee in a bucket and pour it onto your compost pile for some high-nitrogen fun!

I get to eschew health questions if I so desire, so I'll wrap up by saying that if you choose to pee in the shower, the hot water should wash the pee off the basin and your foot. You do clean the bathroom regularly, right? Stay tuned next week for more environmental concerns of fun-lovin' editors the world over.

Urea-ly,
Umbra

Yours is to wonder why, hers is to answer (or try). Please send Umbra any nagging question pertaining to the environment -- but first check out her FAQs!

The claims made in this column may not reflect the views of this magazine. Neither the magazine nor the author guarantees that any advice contained in this column is wise or safe. Please use this column at your own risk.

Umbra Fisk is Grist Research Associate II, Hardcover and Periodicals Unit, floors 2B-4B.

Comments: (18 comments)

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Inspired.

Informative and hysterical -- thanks!

by gohlkus at 11:32 AM on 21 Mar 2007

Another option...

Love the proof of why peeing in the toilet is greener.

If one pees in the shower before turning the water on, you don't waste any water at all!

CAUTION: take a shower after you pee in it!

by marking at 11:57 AM on 21 Mar 2007

To pee or not to pee...

I think peeing in the shower is fine....as long as you are doing other things simultaneously. Besides, who wants to get out of the shower, go pee, then get back in? That wastes water.

And you also save on toilet paper...don't forget that!

(And no, we don't flush every time.)

bc

http://www.earthlygarden.com

by bobbichukran at 11:57 AM on 21 Mar 2007

water reuse/toilet flushing

on the subject of toilet flushing in general, a friend of mine collects the shower/tub water that is not yet hot enough to bathe in and uses THAT to flush the toilet (if you pour it in you don't have to use the handle).

Not sure how this might work with fancier toilets, but it is a great way to use less water. Just have to have a place to put the bucket between when you collect the water and when you "flush" the toilet.

by sarahbei at 12:25 PM on 21 Mar 2007

Anxiety

So much stress around peeing I just might not be able to go with all that math!

I think since I have a low-flow shower and low water usage toilet I'll just pee at my leisure. Comfortable in the knowledge that I've done what I can =)

The bucket water reuse idea from the comment above is entirely too hardcore for me.

by Shawn at 1:20 PM on 21 Mar 2007

Pee on a Tree!

The entire concept of modern human waste management is broken!

First, raise plants that take nutrients out of the ground. Then, eat those plants, utilizing some, but not even most, of those nutrients. Then, flush the remaining nutrients down your toilet OR your shower -- end result is the same for 99.9% of people in industrial countries. Now mix up that nutritious soup with heavy metals, old paint, solvents, caustic soda -- anything else people put in their drains. Now send it to a sewage "treatment" plant, where it is "treated" so it will not sustain life any longer, because it is then dumped in a waterway, and the nutritious cocktail would cause tremendous algae growth otherwise. Now replace the nutrients that were taken out the earth by food plants, with fertilizers made from natural gas.

What's wrong with this picture?

We must close the cycle! So the real answer, as far as I'm concerned, is none of the above!

If you're of a sex with external plumbing, "fertigate" directly on your nearest tree. If you are in a city or suburb, this may be frowned upon, but so are a number of essential earth-saving techniques.

If you lack convenient plumbing or are a bit too modest, it's very simple to collect it in small jars -- 500ml should do for most of us -- and later distribute it to your favorite needy plant or garden.

I won't get into what to do with #2 right now, but do read the Jenkins book to learn how simple it can be.

So toilet, shower, hot water, cold water, whatever -- they're all similar in the final analysis, because they all depend on a system that is fundamentally flawed in concept.

There's no doubt whatsoever that our current human "waste" (resource, actually) management is totally unsustainable. But western civilization is built around the current scheme, and it won't be easy to change. Peeing in a jar is a good first step!

:::: Jan Steinman, EcoReality. ::::

by Bytesmiths at 1:32 PM on 21 Mar 2007

Was That Your Shoe, Man?

After 6 bottles of St. Pauli Girl, I will piss out a window if available.

Does that reduce my carbon footprint?

by jabailo at 2:23 PM on 21 Mar 2007

Clearly this is a question for the WTO

The World Toilet Organization, that is.

These are only my personal opinions.

by Ron Steenblik at 4:02 PM on 21 Mar 2007

wow

this is pretty hardcore, too

http://news.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/03/22/the-year-without ...

by HumdrumPG at 7:04 AM on 22 Mar 2007

no more fungus

I've always heard that peeing in the shower reduces your chances of getting foot fungus.

by kerrieland at 9:53 AM on 22 Mar 2007

Water Treatment != sterilization

Jan Steinman: I don't know what EcoReality is, but you should probably take a couple of courses before spewing such, well, sewage about wastewater treatment.

If you released untreated domestic sewage into a waterway in sufficient concentration, that would kill just about any life in that waterway because the carbonaceous and nitrogenous components would create a huge oxygen demand, de-oxygenating and acidifying the waterway.

A well-designed treatment plant, even if it only has secondary treatment, will remove most of the biological oxygen demand using a bioreactor. In other words, you create conditions where bacteria can eat the carbonaceous food, reducing (but not eliminating) the BOD (biochemical oxygen demand) in the wastewater.

With tertiary (advanced) treatment (which is becoming the law in more and more jurisdictions), you also remove nitrogenous BOD (ammonia and nitrates), dissolved phosphorous, and various other dissolved solids. You chlorinate the water to disinfect it, but most standards also require dechlorination before the waste is discharged. I don't know where you get the idea that wastewater effluent is "unable to sustain life", but it's not from knowledge of wastewater treatment processes.

Hazardous wastes in domestic wastewater are still a problem, but that's where environmental engineers like me come in. With increasing public awareness and producer stewardship programs (which require that producers take responsibility for their products at the end of their use), what people flush today is a lot less harsh than what they flushed ten years ago.

Industrial wastewater still has a long way to go, but it's also much cleaner than it used to be. The biggest problem facing waterways (at least in southwestern BC) is agricultural waste. Factory farms release huge amounts of nitrogenous wastes that leach into groundwater, and from there into waterways, with no treatment except the filtering effect of passing through the aquifer--in the process, often making that aquifer unsuitable for use as a source of drinking water.

So if you want to throw the guilt somewhere, don't attack municipal wastewater treatment plants, which are actually pretty green; attack factory farmers, and the few industries that illegally dump untreated waste into your drinking water supply.

geobeck

by geobeck at 10:34 AM on 22 Mar 2007

On peeing in the shower

My aim is poor! What kind of Tilex should I use on the overspray?

by dev719 at 10:43 AM on 22 Mar 2007

Peeing in the Shower

Great reply!
Two added points that only a nerd might like.

In Australia the design standard for toilets is dual-flush, that is, 1.6 gallons for solids and 1.0 gallons for liquids. The toilets either have a two-position handle or two buttons. They're staring to appear here in the US and California almost incorporated them as mandatory in new residential construction last year.

Second, urine is sterile until it gets out of your body, unless you have a UTI.

Third, (did I say two?) this might be a good idea for a graduate term project, but do people who pee in the shower actually shower for a longer period of time?

"Young lady, in this house we obey the second law of thermodynamics!" - Homer Simpson

by WarrenLiebold at 3:57 PM on 22 Mar 2007

Depends on Where Your Shower Water Goes

I know in my older house the shower water goes down a seperate pipe, straight out to the back from the field where it runs out about 150 feet from the nearest stream. The toilets go to a regular leach field/septic system.

So I'm not sure if it's the best idea at least here to be pissing in the shower, where the water isn't getting any treatment before being discharged back into the environment.

I'm sure this is different in houses build after the mid-1950s.

by nycowboy at 4:06 AM on 23 Mar 2007

(Waste) Water Treatment

Geobeck, I believe Jan was stating the same thing you were - that wastewater treatment removes the nutients - not that it removes all "life giving qualities" of the water before discharge.

In addition, the point she was making was that we need to abandon the water-carried waste disposal system we have grown up with. I know, that means a loss of the conventional jobs for those of us in the sanitary engineering/sciences, but I believe she is correct. One of the most environmentally damaging inventions was that of indoor plumbing dependent upon water carried wastes. If we handle the solids as solids (composting toilets are one solution), we can even add the small amount of piss, just to keep the pile moist. The same goes for food wastes - why do we need garbage disposals, which take valuable byproducts and turn them into a slurry that then needs biological treatment. Compost those wastes also. This could make our grey water (shower/bath, sink, etc.) recyclable in the home environment, or in concentrated cities, in distributed, minimal waste treatment plants, that could recycle onto parks, playgrounds, greenbelts, etc.

by farmerjon at 2:08 PM on 23 Mar 2007

ALTERNATIVE TO PEEING IN THE SHOWER...

I have an alternative...

I use the EMPTY 1 gallon bottles I get from using Crystal Geyser drinking water (99¢ at the 99¢ONLY STOREs). They have handy WIDE MOUTH openings for those of us older men who are aim-challenged.

WHAT DO I DO WITH THE URINE?
I pour it into GOPHER & GROUND SQUIRREL tunnels.

They hate it. Good. I don't want to KILL the things (well sometimes I do). I want them to MOVE over to my neighbor's property instead of destroying my plantings. That and chicken wire cages have brought me to thinking I'm winning the war.

But, when I encounter NEW tunneling or a plant with no roots, I feel like George W. must with his "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" war in Iraq. But for me, WITHDRAWL isn't an option.

Richard Rowe Wofford Heights, CA in the Idyllic Kern River Valley

by RichardinKRV at 11:49 AM on 26 Mar 2007

old saying...

Let us not forget,

If it is yellow, let it mellow,
If it is brown, then flush it down.

Peeing in the shower is great, and at least for me it has gotten rid of some sort of fungus that was on my foot. Maybe the fungus was supposed to die about the same time I gave it the golden shower treatment, but hey it was cheaper than buying some sort of crazy scientist fungus killer in a shiny plastic chemical leaching 6th grader booby enhancing bottle.

Y'all at Grist rock! Pee on Wayne! Pee on Garth!

by superhighdoublebuzz at 3:50 PM on 02 Apr 2007

Did geobeck read the same thing that I wrote?

"Jan Steinman: I don't know what EcoReality is, but you should probably take a couple of courses before spewing such, well, sewage about wastewater treatment."

Well, isn't it pleasant to begin a lecture with a personal attack! That's sure to win people over to your side. I've taken plenty of courses, thank you.

"If you released untreated domestic sewage into a waterway..."

In typical ad-hom style, you're "already listening" to something I never said. Go read it again, please.

"So if you want to throw the guilt somewhere, don't attack municipal wastewater treatment plants..."

Boy, you sure read a different article than the one I wrote!

I'm not at all "attacking municipal wastewater treatment plants." I'm attacking a way of life in which "waste" is "sent away" to be dealt with "elsewhere." If you choose to feel "guilty" about that -- well, if the shoe fits, wear it! :-)

I can understand that having a degree in ecology might seem threatening to a waste engineer. Good! Because in the "couple [dozen] courses" I've taken, I learned that there is no waste in nature. We fail to follow that lead to our own peril.

But no matter. When the natural gas and the phosphate mines run out, we'll have no choice, and will be forced to "close the loop" -- or starve.

:::: Jan Steinman, EcoReality. ::::

by Bytesmiths at 11:45 AM on 29 Apr 2008

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