Three years of operation of the urine diversion system at GTZ headquarters in Germany: user opinions and maintenance challenges

摘要

In the main office building of GTZ in Eschborn, Germany a resource-oriented sanitation systemncontaining urine diversion (UD) toilets and waterless urinals has been in operation since 2006. Aftern2.5 years of operating the system, a first overall evaluation of the system in terms of its acceptancenamongst the users and the cleaning staff was conducted by carrying out two surveys and manyninterviews. The overall result is that most of the users appreciate the sanitation concept in theory butnhave problems with the technical design of the particular type of UD flush toilets installed here. Thensurvey results also gave some directions towards which hygiene devices the users would appreciate innorder to overcome their reluctance to sit down on the toilet seat in public buildings (the sitting beingnnecessary for correct operation of the urine valve to separate urine from flush water). Also, it is difficultnto convince the cleaning and facility maintenance staff of the necessity of special cleaning andnpreventative maintenance routines. Hence, before such systems can be widely used, clear cleaningnroutines and maintenance instruction are required as well as certain technical modifications of thisntype of UD flush toilets to optimise the urine/water separation and the flushing properties of the toilet.