Most waterless urinals, then, are more than an ordinary urinal without the capacity to flush. A cartridge of liquid sealant sits on top of the drain in a waterless urinal.

But Krug made a conceptual breakthrough: The real profits wouldn't come from the urinals themselves. They'd come from selling the replaceable cartridges that sat in each of the waterless receptacles.

Now, I walk to a different building to use a restroom with a urinal that flushes. This means that the waterless urinals aren't saving any water on my account, they're merely inconveniencing me.

Replacing urinals that flush with waterless urinals will save millions of gallons of water. This is a case of low-hanging fruit. Get concise answers to your questions. Try Ask The Post AI.

The cartridges do begin to smell, though, Hill says. They should be changed after a certain number of uses, but so far there's no way to determine how many hits a waterless urinal has had.

Ten years ago, the waterless urinals were practically unheard of, with only two U.S. states permitting the devices in their building codes. Now the government is pushing for them to become the norm.

The H2Zero Cube waterless urinal by Caroma has won the 2007 Award for Excellence in Sustainable Design at the Australian Design Awards. The product operates utilis_ing patented cartridge ...

In the 1990s, sealant-filled cartridges for waterless urinals were introduced. “Those cartridges took the ‘ugh’ factor out of the maintenance,” says Mr. Goble.