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New urinal designs prevent 265,000 gallons of urine splashing onto the floor

Researchers have invented two new urinal designs that could significantly reduce the amount of urine splashback, keeping public restrooms cleaner.

This high level of spillage of urine requires frequent cleaning, which uses a large volume of water, is unpleasant work for custodial staff and is very expensive. They mimicked a stream of urine by creating a "pseudo-urethra nozzle," which had the same internal geometry as a human urethra, and used dyed liquid to better determine where splashback was occurring. The widespread adoption of these urinal designs "would result in considerable conservation of human resources, cost, cleaning chemicals, and water usage, rendering large-scale impacts on modern society by improving sustainability, hygiene, and accessibility," the researchers wrote.

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