With the Western Cape facing the pressure of day Zero, University of Cape Town (UCT) Civil Engineering graduate, Tinashe Chipako has come up with a water saving alternative to regular urinals.
Chipako, winner of the 2018 South African Institution of Civil Engineering (SAICE) National Investigative Project Showdown, a competition open to all South African universities, based his project researching the “feasibility of implementing waterless urinals on UCT’s upper campus.”
“Unsurprisingly, it was quite surreal to have conversations with highly regarded personalities in the South African civil engineering community, and I’m truly grateful to have been awarded the opportunity. I’d like to thank the entire Department of Civil Engineering at UCT for the unparalleled support I’ve been given throughout my studies,” said Chipako.
In his research Chipako identified five key understandings:
- UCT uses enough water to fill about eight Olympic-size swimming pools to flush urinals each year.
- UCT purchases four tons of fertiliser each year, but seven tons of fertiliser could be made from urine collected on campus.
- 79% of the 500 survey respondents said they would support food grown using urine-derived fertiliser.
- 96% of the respondents said they would support waterless urinals because they conserve water.
- The cheapest option for saving water in urinals would be to simply reduce the number of flushes. (This has already been achieved by placing signage in several bathrooms asking users to not flush).
The urine based project for the Department of Civil Engineering was part of Dr Dyllon Randal’s latest field of research within the department. This research field also led to the 2017 Greenovate Award winner, Craig Flannagan’s for his fertilizer from urine project.
The students’ assignments demonstrated the benefits of introducing waterless urinals that not only save vast quantities of water, but recover valuable, sustainable resources from what Randall calls ‘liquid gold’.
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Picture: news.uct.ac.za