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Ask Umbra on public peeing 20

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Q. Dear Umbra,

What, in your opinion, is proper flushing etiquette when using public lavatories? Or, indeed, those belonging to your friends? At home we follow the if-it’s-yellow rule, but only occasionally am I bold enough to do this in a public restroom; in general it feels rather antisocial unless I am so fantastically hydrated that you can barely tell I’ve peed. Any thoughts?

Urines truly,
Ms. Peebody

A. Dearest Ms. Peebody,

restroom signIt’s not polite to leave your urine unflushed in a public lav, nor is it polite to do so at the house of a friend, unless the friend also regularly follows the if-it’s-yellow rule. Urine is a bodily excretion, and none of us should be made to suffer too much viewing (or potential splashing) of other people’s bodily excretions. It’s one thing among immediate family, if all the family members are in agreement. Non-related housemates might also agree to a general low-flush rule.

In reflecting on this question, contemplate other excretions, and the general public politenesses that should surround them. For instance, it’s not considered OK to exercise until one is drenched with sweat and then go directly to a coffee shop, still dripping. It’s not OK to repeatedly blow a very boogery nose into a cloth hanky when out and about, so that others must think about the sopping wet cotton. Ear wax is not for public view. I could go on, but I think we all have active imaginations, or even memories of times when a fellow human has been less than polite.

At home, we are often living with people whose bodily excretions are more pleasant to us, and we can amongst ourselves set our own rules for what is and is not OK. (Young children, I have learned, carry their own set of rules, which other people are oft forced to follow. One such rule: it is perfectly acceptable to barf on others.) Do whatever is appropriate in your own home—and make sure that you have either a low-flow toilet or some water-saving devices installed, so that when you do flush you’re using as little water as possible.

The good news in this sort of icky situation is that some public places are starting to use dual-option toilets, in which you can choose how much water your particular excretion requires in order to be whisked away. Sightings of such smart potties have been reported in airports, hotels, and of course Europe.

One final note: I always support peeing outside if, again, the location does not bother anyone else—and is not, say, a treasured national landmark. Pee is good for plants.

Conservationaly,
Umbra

 

 

Yours is to wonder why, hers is to answer (or try). Send your green-living questions to Umbra.

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

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  1. wayneluke Posted 7:21 am
    27 May 2009

    People should encourage their local municipalities to install low-flow toilets and waterless urinals at all public facilities. Local cities and water districts can encourage that commercial buildings install these as well with incentives and tax rebates. After years of drought here in California, a lot of local businesses are installing the waterless urinals to lower their ever increasing water bill. One popular miniature golf course locally estimates that its waterless urinals save 120,000 gallons of water a year. 40,000 gallons per urinal.

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  2. jnyanydots Posted 9:05 am
    27 May 2009

    Pee is good for plants???? Really? Should one pee directly on the plants or just near them? I have seen yellow spots on lawns and plants from dog urine. Is human urine better? Any info would be appreciated.

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    1. racje Posted 11:35 am
      27 May 2009

      Urine contains urea, a component of nitrogen fertilizers. A little bit is good for plants; a lot creates nitrogen burn. Carnivores' pee is more nitrogenous than omnivores or herbivores, so if you are vegan, your urine is more benign than a meat-eating dog.Highly fertilized lawns are more vulnerable to nitrogen overload than unfertilized lawns.The best place to pee outside would be your compost pile, especially if it is low in nitrogen. The composting process will even out the nitrogen content as well as destroy the odd hantavirus, and you can regulate how much you put on various parts of your garden.Or dilute, as the above poster suggests--but then, you're probably not actually peeing outside, are you?Putting waste matter into drinking water and flushing it away is insane. The recovery period is likely to be rocky. Meantime, avoid grossing everybody out: do as your hosts do.

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  3. Mary Gilbert Posted 10:27 am
    27 May 2009

    In some Third World (or more correctly, Majority World) countries --- and maybe here too, I don't know --- there are water - free toilets that immediately separate the urine from the solid material and use the urine for fertilizer. The solid waste is dried and can be used to generate methane for lighting and other uses.  Or it can be interlayered with sawdust or other such materials and allowed to dry to become compost too.These technologies are very important to publicize and otherwise make available in arid places, especially with the increase of drought and spread of outright desertification associated with climate change. Human urine is definitely good for plants.  Even food plants.  Dilute 10-15 parts water to 1 part urine, more diluted for potted plants,and use it before 24 hours go by so it hasn't turned to amonia.

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  4. MinnesotaNative Posted 11:57 am
    27 May 2009

    Peeing on plants directly is not a good idea.  Urine is however a good nitrogen source for compost and does not carry the same pathogenic risks as human feces.Check out the GardenWeb Soil Forum for an entertaining thread entitled "To Pee or Not to Pee">>> http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/soil/msg042142151191.html   

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  5. tom-carpal-nicholson Posted 8:14 am
    28 May 2009

    I make it a habit to flush my liquid after urinating because I like to enter a public restroom with the urine in the bowl flushed out. I hope everyone do the same. I am guided the by the Golden Rule "Do NOT do unto others what you do NOT want others to do unto you."

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  6. woodsygirl Posted 9:28 am
    28 May 2009

    My husband and I just built a compost bin from pallets.  It's working better than the bed we were piling scraps and clippings and stuff on before.  I wanted to pee on it like my husband can, but since I don't have the hose,pointer thingy he has, I don't think I can aim between the slats on the pallet quite as well.  Though not the same natural experience that he has, I have managed to make my own contribution.  I pee in a bottle inside ( it's also harder for me to not be obvious outside) and empty the bottle on the compost a couple of times a day.  I put the toilet paper in a lidded container and add it to the compost as well.  Nothing to flush.  Maybe not the perfect sollution, but (perhaps butt)......

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  7. Bart Anderson's avatar

    Bart Anderson Posted 9:40 am
    28 May 2009

    I think Umbra's column falls short of her usual good advice.There is a higher law than current custom, and that is: "Understand the consequences of your actions and take responsibility for them."The modern flush toilet is profoundly wasteful and un-ecological.  I predict that it will shortly be seen as criminal. Think of it -- in a world becoming desperately short of water, to waste gallons of drinking-quality water because of our tender sensibilities. During an earlier drought, Californians got used to not flushing.If you are concerned about energy - and we all should be - the storage, processing and transportation of water represents a huge consumption of energy.  In California, I know that it represents several percentage points of our total energy usage.Finally, there is the problem of nutrients.  Our modern sewage systems take them to where they shouldn't be (waterways) and removes them where they should (the agricultural cycle). We are spoiled with cheap fertilizers and forget that these are only a phasing phase. Mined phosphorus is probably near its peak production, and there is no substitute.What does this mean for individuals and the dilemma of whether to flush?First, I think it means that we need to be aware that the problem is much deeper than one of aesthetics, as Umbra would have it.Second, even though most of us in the developed world are stuck with a modern sewage infrastructure, there are many improvements that can and are being made. Third, there is the challenge of bringing a messy issue to the attention of the public. This may involve not flushing in public restrooms, or actions that are more in-your-face.  Customs change. In the South, it was concerned impolite for guests to criticize their hosts for openly whipping or mistreating their slaves.  In our modern age, the equivalent is our thoughtless waste.Social change does not come easily.Bart
    Energy Bulletin

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  8. biscuits Posted 11:56 am
    28 May 2009

    Hey Umbra, I'm p#ssed -- get it -- ha ha. I think that it is criminal in a time of increasing water shortages and scarcity to assume that each time you urinate 3-5 gallons of good water should be lost. Unless you have some kind of auto-immune deficiency etc. I cannot imagine a situation where there is a physical health reason you can't be peeing in a toilet someone has peed in. Think of it this way, each flush is, say, 3 gallons of water. Every time you don't flush, that saves 3 gallons. Over a day, you could save a minimum of 9 gallons, 63 gallons a week, 252 gallons a month, and 3276 a year. Now, multiply that by a person like me, a person with a tiny bladder who drinks a lot of coffee and pees about 9 times over a day (minimum), I can't imagine wasting over 10,000 gallons of water a year on my pee, when it's perfectly harmless (except for the caffeine). All numbers aside, I do flush if at a stranger's home, but never flush at say, a rest stop or gas station or at the office.  Following this policy for about 5 years I'll guess has saved the world about 50,000 gallons -- nothing to sneeze about. Also, speaking of sneezing, I also use hankies in public. You also can't convince me it's better to cut down virgin forest for my snot rags than to re-use a hankie! 

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  9. mnfox Posted 12:47 pm
    28 May 2009

    Umbra, you write as if your opinions on politeness and etiquette are fact - they're not. They're just opinions. Stick to writing posts about facts. Because the fact of the matter is, if we all were a bit less "polite," we'd be saving billions of gallons of water.

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  10. WarriorWart Posted 1:03 pm
    28 May 2009

    >It’s not OK to repeatedly blow a very boogery nose into a cloth hanky when out and about, so that others must think about the sopping wet cotton.



    I'm pretty sure I disagree with you on this one. I'm not sure if you mean that we should just hold it, or that it's somehow more polite to make people think about sopping wet disposable tissue paper. Ohhhhh that's right, we don't have to think about stuff after it's thrown out, because it's simply gone. *sighs*



    In other news, hankies are superior to disposables in almost every way - cost, comfort, conservation, and (yes!) convenience. After switching I had my first cold with no red nose.

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    1. portiafaceslife Posted 5:29 pm
      30 May 2009

      I carry a (clean) hanky with me everywhere I go.  I have post nasal drip which tends to strike without warning, & I definitely get social anxiety if I'm out without a hanky! I throw the hanky in the dirty laundry when I get home, and wash them in the hot wash with the towels (the only hot wash I do) to kill the germs.A cotton hany is a definite advantage when you wash your hands  at a public washroom.  No need to waste trees (paper towel) or electricity on handdriers that take ages and seldom dry your hands effectively.  Just dry on your clean hanky & out the door!With the fears over H1N1 influenza, I definitely think a cotton hanky that can go through the hot wash is superior infection control to soggy paper tissues that sit around in public wastebins.  What's more. even with regular hot washes, my cotton hankies last for years - I have some that are at least 10 years old.

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  11. johnpdeever Posted 1:43 pm
    28 May 2009

    Regarding hankies, reminds me of an African riddle I heard once:  "We throw it away, but the European hoards it.  What is it?"  Answer: snot.  . . .http://books.google.com/books?id=Az0O28OtWh4C&pg=PA246&lpg=PA246&dq=throw+away+snot+africa&source=bl&ots=ILUO8QO8Mt&sig=J0KXedtij1QtXm1nCRgPMWjqkwE&hl=en&ei=4fYeSpDDDprNlQesgKHHBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5

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  12. Clifford Wells's avatar

    Clifford Wells Posted 4:27 pm
    28 May 2009

    Actually, unless there's something wrong with you, your urine is pretty much sterile.  I thing Ghandi fasted for weeks and drank nothing but his own pee.  I don't recommend it, but it's not the pathogen-packed killer you think it is.  You're thinking of Number Two ... poop.I have to agree that flushing the toilet is a horrendous waste.  I only do that around lady company, where even "toilet seat etiquette" is a big deal.  Left to my own err, devices, I'll flush every three pees, go outside, or a night when nobody is looking, pee off my second story porch.  Very satisfying, by the way, but not suited for cities or snoopy neighbors.We fish a lot offshore (catch & release) and we only pack along 20 to 30 gallons of water.  It is too valuable to waste on a flush.  We pee right into the ocean.  At the beach, we're miles away from a restroom so hey, you can make jokes about how warm the water is in spots. By the way, a good fraction of the municipal freshwater sold in the US is from reservoirs and surface impoundsments.  Don't drink it.  The fish pee in it.

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    1. MinnesotaNative Posted 8:59 pm
      28 May 2009

      It is not Gandhi who drank his own pee, but the former Prime Minister of India Morarji Desai. In 1978, he told Dan Rather on 60 Minutes that he was a long-time practitioner of "urine therapy."

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      1. Clifford Wells's avatar

        Clifford Wells Posted 10:53 pm
        28 May 2009

        Now that's the kind of facts I like to be corrected about.But I must confess, after meeting some people outide of the US, many say that Amercians have issues with peeing.  I am pretty sure that us Americans (not me) spend about a billion dollars on trying to mask the ammoniac smell of urine.  There are automatic flushers, scent dispensers, and chemical nightmares just so designed so us Amercians don't have to smell pee.  It's almost commical.  Let's not even get into B.O. consumer products, which I found I was highly allergic to.There again, Americans have the curious hanit of putting the "flusher" right next to the bathtub.  Many foreigners find this rather curious.  You shit next to where you bathe?  It must be the American Way.Culturally, we're pretty darn Puritanical about pee, as I think Umbra talked about "bodily excretions."  Gosh you make it sound like a hippopotamus in heat or something.  I'm always on the look-out on the highway because sometimes I'll sneak a pee on the side of the road and some conservative retard will try to call the cops on me or something.  Best not to give them the benefit of the doubt.  It's a big problem and face it, us Americans are freaky about pee.  Poor gals it'e even worse.  H. L. Mencken would have a field day with this topic if he was born more like a hippie instead of being such a jerk. 

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  13. pam018 Posted 7:59 pm
    28 May 2009

    Well I certainly like the idea of convincing governments and buisnesses to use the technology available. Rather than some individuals making decisions which will make our planet a better place it is time we force the issue on a larger scale. Wedding Ideas

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  14. Solanae Posted 11:49 pm
    28 May 2009

    The choosable-flush toilet has spread a lot farther than Europe. I've been in New Zealand for 7 months, and I can count the times I haven't had a choice on one hand. The U.S has such hubris about always having the newest, the best and the greatest number of choices that I can't understand why we're only now cottoning on to something everybody else seems to have figured out.

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  15. portiafaceslife Posted 11:55 pm
    29 May 2009

    In Australia we've had dual-flush toilets for about 20 years - we invented them! When my kids were young, in the 80s, we lived in the bush for a while on a hobby farm - our only water supply was the rainwater tank, so the 'mellow yellow' rule was strictly followed. Even though dual flush loos are widely available in almost every shopping mall & most homes, I still practice 'mellow yellow' at home.  But it's not appropriate when you visit someone else's home, or a public loo!  Think of all the water you've saved, and be prepared to 'spend' a liitle of it in the interests of courtesy.In Germany & Sweden they have toilets that separate the urine at source for recycling.  Urine is a valuable source of the non-renewable element phosphorus that all plants need for growth.  I save a cup of pee a week to water my herbs onmy balcony with.

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  16. Niecey's avatar

    Niecey Posted 3:09 am
    30 May 2009

    hey now-- the question was--what do you believe is proper etiquette? Despite our eco-tendencies, we must be nice to others and not let them see our pee in public cuz I know that only other eco-friendly people will end up peeing in a toilet where there's already pee there. The majority, I'm sure would see your pee and flush before they go. Then, if you so happen to walk out of the toilet as they enter-- they'll get all pissy with you! (pardon the pun) If this was a which is greener question, then the answer would clearly be--let it mellow. I have tried to implement this at home by my hub just won't take. We have a low-flo toilet anyway and have the 1/2 flush option too so that helps. IMO, I think it's better to flush in public and just write a letter to the store owner or manager and ask if they could install the lo-flo toilets and tell them how much $$ they'll end up saving.

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