Random thought, kicking around my head since last May.

[randomness]

Whoever manages to convince the Public Utilities Board of Singapore to switch over to waterless urinals is going to make a nice chunk of change. Not only does Singapore want to reduce the amount of water they have to pipe over from Johor, but they also have plenty of public toilets.

It couldn't hurt.

(Reminded of this as I'm reading Hodding Carter's Flushed: How the Plumber Saved Civilization. Light but amusing, although I disagree with him about the washlet. On the other hand, his description of the Caravelle makes me want to check one out.)

Comments

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

With the caveat that most of what I know on this subject is from using the toilets in question, plus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_supply_and_sanitation_in_Singapore :) here is what I can tell you:

According to Wikipedia, they're in charge of water supply and sanitation. It may well be that they're just the water supplier and sewer authority and not responsible directly for the network of public toilets, but in that case I'm not sure who is. (There is a Restroom Association, but they look like an advocacy group.)

If it's not them I have not yet found out who does run them. From outward appearances the network is a single network operated by one government authority, but that could be just appearance; it might be that each individual district is responsible for operating them. (I'm specifically leaving aside any operated by private organizations, like individual buildings, for the reason you mention.) But yeah, it looks to the user like the public facilities--these tend to be standalone blocks of toilets in various useful places--are operated by some arm of the government.

They're reasonably clean and well-kept, too, considering climate and high level of usage. But every time I saw a posted admonition to save water, it reminded me that some waterless urinal manufacturer had a potential market opening. Perhaps someone in the industry is already trying to make a sale?

I suppose it could be part of the National Environment Agency, but I thought they were a regulatory agency.

As I said, I don't actually know more about this than a naive user; it just kept occurring to me each time I used one.
(Also, the book is rather light. A real history of the subject it's not. Still fun, though.)