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Cath Hassell of Ech₂o Consultants responds to ‘To Flush or not to flush, that is the question’ by Paul Hinkin of Black Architecture with her thoughts on female urinals

To use a urinal as suggested, women need to use some sort of wee director (for use of a better word) and these have to be made and then disposed of after use. They are either paper (which can only be used once) or plastic, which if you are going to re-use needs to be washed out and then dried before being put back into a handbag………… The environmental costs of both are far higher than the small amount of CO2 emissions that would be saved because you haven’t flushed the toilet.

The comment about some women flushing the toilet 4 times is a completely spurious one. Anyone who does that is certainly not going to be using a urinal. They would use the cubicle which would need to be provided anyway.

The wee directors are hard to use when wearing trousers, without pulling the trousers down over your bottom. They have the potential to work well at festivals because the punters are up for anything, but really that is the sum of their usefulness. And anyway at festivals most of the toilets don’t flush, everything just drops into a pit, so you aren’t saving any water.

If we are serious about reducing the amount of water women use when they wee, there are urine separating toilets available on the UK market that use just 0.5 litres to clean the urine tray after use.  What could also be considered is a squat toilet that doesn’t have a hole but a channel for the wee. I have used those in India. Both of these solutions use women’s anatomy as it is but reduce the amount of water used.

Or why don’t we just tighten the regulations so that maximum flush volume for WCs is lowered to 4/2.5?

How do feel about female urinals? Are they a good idea? Would you use one? Please reply below or email your comments to ajintern@emap.com