Dutch company GreenPee has installed eight hemp-filled sustainable urinals in Amsterdam to combat increased people urinating in the streets after the coronavirus lockdown ended.
Amsterdam council rushed to install the public urinals in the city center as tourists returned and pubs reopened.
Users urinate into the openings on the sides of the Greenlee planters, which have an internal tank filled with hemp fibers from the cannabis plant.
The tank is emptied when full, and levels can be checked manually or by using an intelligent sensor that sends a message when it’s nearly complete.
Once emptied, the mix of urine and hemp can be used for organic fertilizer for the city’s parks, roof gardens, and urban farms.
Amsterdam City Council first collaborated with GreenPee in 2018 when they installed four urinal planters.
“Independent evaluation showed that there was a 50 percent decrease in wild peeing after installing the GreenPees”, GreenPee inventor Richard de Vries told Dezeen.
“So Amsterdam wanted to expand the project and place more GreenPees in the city’s central district.”
Despite global reports of the coronavirus lockdown creating a lack of public toilets, de Vries said it has caused a drop in demand for the GreenPees.
“Cities told me there are no people on the streets, so there is no need for public facilities,” he said. “Hopefully, this will change, and there will be no further lockdowns shortly.”
As Holland’s lockdown eased, Amsterdam’s council decided to install the new urinals, which had been ordered in 2019 and on hold since February.
“Last month, more tourists came to Amsterdam, and the pubs opened, so more people were on the street, and there was more nuisance from wild peeing,” de Vries said.
The latest models have been adjusted based on feedback from the first four and now have more privacy and more openings to pee in. The company also designed a unique, slimmer model that can be placed in narrow alleyways.
Greenlee has also installed urinals in Dutch cities such as Vlaardingen, Beekbergen, Mechelen, and Genk in Belgium.
De Vries says the planters can save thousands of liters of drinking water as they don’t need to be flushed with liters of water, unlike traditional urinals.
Greenpeace is also more sustainable because it converts urine into plant fertilizer.
“Urine has a lot of phosphates in it, and the phosphate mines are drying out, so this is an excellent sustainable alternative that we would otherwise flush down the toilet,” said de Vries.
In addition to being decorative, the urinal planters act as micro-ecosystems for insects.
Declaimer: https://www.dezeen.com/2020/08/20/greenpee-sustainable-urinal-planters-amsterdam-design-news
