Oooh: In order to appease the downtown Brooklyn community, Bruce Ratner and the Nets arena development team are proposing to use waterless urinals in order to reduce the water and sewage outflow from the proposed arena. Yes, waterless urinals - crazy stuff! Ratner's group may also build holding tanks for days when the sewage system is overwhelmed (we know there must be buildings that have these, but, still, ew when we think about it), even though the city says the current sewer system can handle extra from an arena, but these ideas are not acceptable to the Friends and Resident of Greater Gowanus, which says, "The current infrastructure lets sewage into the canal even under dry conditions. Even before Ratner's project was on the table this has been an issue down here." Ew, and is this why there was a seal in the water? [For some other problems with coverage of the Nets arena development, check out this Curbed summary.]
Anyway, Gothamist was curious about the waterless urinal, so we checked out one maker of such devices, which has a great animated diagram of how it works. The company, Waterless, says that waterless urinals have been installed at Liberty Island - has anyone used one? Are they effective and non-smelly? And while we're on this train of thought, we must say Toto toilets, with the warmed seats, are amazing.
