Waterless urinals are eco-friendly and economical
Attention gents. Going to the toilet can help you save the planet, say Uwe Bast and Christian Schmitz of Reme KK, sole distributor in Japan of Urimat waterless urinals.
Urimat is the world-leading waterless urinal with more than 100,000 customers in 37 countries, notably Switzerland (where Urimat originated), Germany, Austria, England, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.
“In Germany and Switzerland Urimat is as famous as McDonalds or Coca-Cola,” says Bast, Reme’s representative director. “Ask a man and chances are that he will know [the name].”
So what is the secret of this super loo?
“It is a toilet that does not smell; it is eco-friendly since it doesn’t use water; it produces less CO2; it offers cost-savings for building owners; and, on top of all that, it is an advertising medium,” says Schmitz, executive director of Reme.
This unique urinal system, patented in 1998, consists of three components: a lightweight and break-resistant pore-free urinal bowl made from high-tech plastic; a hydrostatic siphon cartridge at the bottom of the bowl; and a microbacterial cleansing agent that neutralises odour and prevents the drainage pipe from clogging.
“Urimat is very popular with food and beverage companies, especially fast-food restaurants, because it is odourless. Unpleasant smell from toilets is a big problem for them,” explains Schmitz.
A more significant issue for the planet, however, is the shortage of water. Only 2.5% of water on this planet is fresh water, Bast points out, of which most is ice in the Artic and Antarctic, and underground water. Less than 1% is available for human use, but in recent years industrial water use has increased drastically, leading to water shortages.
What’s more, the world population is expected to triple and water use increase six times as a result. A quarter of all clean water used in people’s homes goes to flush toilets.
And with each flush of a urinal about four litres of water goes down the drain, Bast points out. “If we keep wasting our water, we will run out of clean water before we run out of oil.”
In an office with 50 male staff, one Urimat system could save about 212,000 litres of water per year. Taking into account the energy used in transporting and cleaning water, the CO2 reduction is 0.72kg per 1,000 litres of water, or 152kg per year. For an office building with 1,000 male staff it would be three tons of CO2.
Building owners and managers can save money as well as water. With 212,000 litres of water saved for each urinal and annual running costs less than ¥30,000, the cost savings would amount to over ¥100,000 per year, per urinal.
In Europe, McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, and many other companies purchase or sponsor Urimat urinals as part of their corporate social responsibility (CSR) work. McDonald’s annual CSR report recommends Urimat and makes the waterless urinal a minimum requirement in its “Silver Standard” for setting up new franchise restaurants in Europe and the United States.
An electronic display on top of the urinal informs users of Urimat’s green credentials during the 40 seconds (average) they are at the loo, about the length of a TV advertisement, but without any chance to switch channels.
The display can also advertise products to match its location. For example, Urimat installations in pubs can be an interesting platform for beer or vodka marketing.
Despite its success in Europe, Urimat is not yet widely known in Japan. So Bast and Schmitz are busily promoting the brand at trade shows and through articles in specialist magazines. They also engage Japanese advisors and have four local distribution partners.
“The crucial factor for success in Japan is to get the right connections and to establish relationships of trust,” says Schmitz. “Even being number one in the world, in Japan, you are nothing without local references.”
One of Reme KK’s senior advisors, a building owner in central Tokyo, installed Urimat in one of his buildings in Shimbashi, creating a place where Bast and Schmitz could take potential customers to see the product at work.
Reme KK celebrates its second anniversary in June. Bast and Schmitz can already report that the company is in the black and thay have received much positive feedback from the B2B market, such as large construction companies, rail companies and public organisations.
Their client list includes construction and housing companies Daiwa House, Taisei and Takenaka, as well as a petrol station chain. The city of Yokohama installed test urinals at one of its zoos with a second location to follow this month, and the United Nations University did the same at their building in Aoyama in Tokyo.
In fact, Reme KK is not the first company to introduce waterless urinals to Japan, and they face worries about how they work, as well as doubts about whether Urimat can live up to its promise. (Competitor urinals failed to solve the problem of smell). Nevertheless, inviting people to test the urinal over several months has proved a successful way of dispelling concerns.
In May this year Urimat won the 2011 Environmental and Equipment Design Award, an annual competition run by the Japanese Association of Building Engineering and Equipment. Although Urimat has already won many prizes in Europe, this is the first from a top industry organisation in Japan.
Looking to the future, Bast and Schmitz envision a wide network of Urimat installations throughout Japan and Urimat being the market leader for waterless urinals here. They hope to help combat water shortages, one of the most serious environmental challenges of our time.