Men will soon be flushing toilets less and less at Vanderbilt, with the replacement of traditional urinals with new waterless units on campus.
The change comes in an effort to improve the overall environmental efficiency of Vanderbilt’s campus. As part of this, Plant Operations will try to make every non-residential urinal waterless by 2013, according to Assistant Vice Chancellor of Plant Operations, Mark Petty.
"It's meant to make our public restrooms in non-residential buildings as water conservation friendly as possible," said Petty.
Results have been positive, as Petty says that since the school installed its first waterless urinals, the school has conserved "millions and millions” of gallons of water. This is compared to the 35 percent increase in water use that Davidson County has seen in that same time period.
Petty estimates that 40 to 50 percent of public non-residential urinals are currently in the waterless format, but hopes are high that they will all be waterless within the next three years.
In addition, waterless urinals are now the standard in the construction of all new buildings on campus such as the Commons Center.
"It’s our standard now," he said. "Everything that we build from this point forward will be low flow. Hopefully that will include touch-less and low flow faucets, waterless urinals, and low flow toilets."
Waterless urinals are one of the changes represent encouraging progress in the campus-wide efforts to go green and help the environment. Petty admits that tangible steps in areas such as water conservation are the building blocks for a fully green campus.
"It is the first of many tangible steps," Petty said. "I think we realize that our greatest impact in the green environment is going to be in utility and energy conservation. We are moving in those directions and trying to be methodical about it."
