The closest restroom to the new office suite is frequently used despite its small size. People on the first floor, dock workers, the office suite that I’m in, and people on their out of the building use this facility. Now, I’ve seen some messed up bathrooms, from euro-rail WCs to unlit tiny rooms in a asian back alley, but I work in a gleaming first world Fortune-500 company. Consisting of 2 waterless urinals, 2 commodes, and 4 sinks; this poor little room takes a lot of abuse. This morning’s green tea and banana flavored soy drink coaxed me to use this restroom.

I walked into the restroom, and immediately saw a tall man standing in front of the lower set ‘waterless urinal’. Angered that this man wasn’t using the appropriate urinal for his height, I approached the higher set urinal which to my horror was filled with urine. As a quick aside, my keen atavistic sense told me that the person who last used the toilet could do with drinking more water. I left to use a stall, but to this moment, I’m haunted by the thought, “How do you flush a waterless toilet?” and furthermore, “How does a waterless toilet get clogged”.

Addressing the latter, I wonder if this is a mechanical issue where something physical blocking the drainage. I picture some collective of rogue kidney stones or bolus of hair clogging the patented waterless system. I have visited the website of this technology but my personal interest in the inner workings of waste management is fleeting, if any. Now onto the other issue, clearing the blockage. The bowl of a waterless toilet system is very shallow, it’s much like peeing into a decorative bird bath. The waste drains through small slits at bottom, hardly the drainage system of traditional urinals. The ‘system’ relies on some type of voodoo to move the urine, and there is no lever or chain to tug expunge your business. I imagine that someone had to manually remove some of the excess urine in the bowl before having to pump/plunge the urinal. In any case, the poor person who has to address this full toilet will have to handle urine. All you asshole environmentalist have that on your conscience, we’re conserving water (IN THE GREAT LAKES STATE) but you’re not the one unclogging or flushing the waterless toilet.