FEATURE 33
We extract only the Departmental Buildings Water use for illustration : There were 299 washrooms and 309 urinals . DESCRIPTION ORDINARY MIXERS / TAPS TOUCHLESS MIXERS / TAPS Litres per tap per day 225 87.5 Hours of usage per tap per day 2 2 Days per year 180 180 Annual water usage ( litres ) 7 , 62,48,000 6,38.45.000 Reduce annual water usage by - 1,24,03,000 Annual water cost ZAR 355,966.10
Just an interesting bit of information around how the price of water has escalated ** between 1996 to 2021 by 1270 % with inflation averaging 296 %.
Converted litres to kilo litres X R28.70 ( 1,24.03,000 k / l ) Equates too just under R30 000.00 per month
This provides solid input for engineers and plumbers to encourage customers to move to touchless .
The issue of touchless in general and waterless urinals has a great deal more legs than just water saving , as important as saving is . We obtained permission from Prof DG Randall to reprint the abstract to the paper referenced below to show how good it is to look beyond our own activity and add to the greater good .
Geberit
This research investigates the feasibility of implementing waterless urinals at a public university in Cape Town , South Africa . two analytical approaches were adopted to assess the feasibility of the proposed systems : a social study in the form of an online survey and an economic evaluation of four separate water saving and nutrient removal systems .
The touchless public toilet or restroom should eliminate any touching of products from toilet handles , buttons , basin mixers , hand dryers and including doorways , all to eliminate germ transfer .
In terms of the online survey , 87 % of respondents claimed they would use urine-diverting technology and 79 % stated they would eat food that was grown using urine-recycled phosphorus as fertiliser . It was found that merely reducing the number of times a urinal could be flushed to 3 times per day could save approximately 18 ML of water annually . Additionally , the University of Cape Town requires 3 600 kg of fertiliser for its sports fields , while the urine collected in waterless systems has the potential to produce 6 700 kg of fertiliser .
This work has shown that a significant amount of water can be saved by installing waterless urinals in public institutions such as a University . It also shows that there is potential to recover valuable resources from our ‘ waste ’ streams , thus closing various nutrient cycles through on-site fertiliser production .
Touchless Technology in whatever form from a hygienic point of view has a major application in this country .
Potable water saving for South Africa is also not an option and the number of low flush options available and certified by Agrement SA are encouraging . Engineers and plumbers must look at these options for the particular applications they are suited for . PA
June 2021 Volume 27 I Number 4 www . plumbingafrica . co . za