You will not find water on the ground or see overflowing urinals in the mens locker room at the University of Arizona Recreation Center, that's because their urinals dont use water.

Falcon Waterfree Urinals were installed at the UA Recreation Center about two years ago according to Mike Honeycutt, assistant director at the UA Recreation Center. "We got the waterfree urinals because a plumbing shop referred them to us," he said. "We had been dealing with a lot of over flowing urinals, the handles wouldn't shut off and we lost lots of water."

According to Falcon Waterfree Urinals, about five percent of fresh water is used to flush away urine. Falcon's website boasts a 40,000 gallon savings of fresh water each year by switching to waterless urinals; enough to fill around five million 12 ounce water bottles with the water saved.

"The idea for a waterless urinal is over 100 years old," according to Randy Goble, vice president of marketing for Falcon Waterfree Urinals. "The waterless company was started in 1990, but then there was a fallout and a split and we became Falcon around 2000."

These urinals are being used all over the world according to Julie Walker, customer experience manager for Falcon Waterfree Urinals. "From the U.S. to places like China and Japan, the Falcon company does business on every continent," says Walker. They are also being put in some fancy and fun places such as the Taj Mahal and Lego land. They are found in Arenas such as the Rose Bowl and Nou Camp Stadium, a soccer stadium in Barcelona, Spain that holds over 90,000 people.

The waterfree urinals work by trapping the urine and odor under an air tight blue sealant placed in the urinal.

Test results from UCLA and LGA in Germany confirm that the sealant liquid is completely biodegradeable. In addition, the Federal Ministry of the Environment in Germany reports the sealant poses no health risk when handled, according to Falcon's website.

Waterless urinals pose a lot of questions, like how in the world can it stay clean and smell fresh?

"I would think that a urinal that doesn't have any water would smell absolutely terrible," said Will Holt, a criminal justice major at the UA.

As stated on the Falcon website, "urine is essentially odorless."

"Urine odor" is caused when urine reacts with water to cause ammonia oxide. No water means no reaction. Next, consider that the materials of the Falcon fixture are non-porous and designed to funnel virtually every drop of urine through the sealant layer in the cartridge and down the drain. Next, remember that the sealant liquid is lighter than water and creates an airtight seal, so the urine passes through it and becomes trapped beneath it," explains the Falcon website.

"At the student rec their were some complaints about the new idea because people thought it was going to smell really bad," said Honeycutt. "The truth is that there was no real smell difference really at all, we just have typical air fresheners, nothing new or different."

According to independent research done in Oregon state parks, there was no real ammonia smell that came from waterfree urinals. "If the Urinals really did not smell more than I think that they would be a great idea, why don't we see them more often?" said Holt.

According to Falcon, these waterfree toilets are actually a lot cleaner as well as safer and require a lot less effort.

"Flush valves tend to fail from time to time and this makes for overflow which causes a lot of problems, with no flush valves there is no overflow which leads to no water waste." According to Honeycutt, the UA Recreation Center was also having problems with overflow and these new toilets have eliminated that problem, said Honeycutt. So far, the UA Recreation Center has not had any issues with the new urinals.



"Falcons waterfree Urinals have performed well with heavy usage and still require little maintenance," said Darryl Dunn, general manager of the Rose Bowl Stadium, quoted on Falcon's website.

The price of getting one of these urinals is a bit costly says Honeycutt. "The original price was significantly more than regulars," says Honeycutt. "There was a whole lot of savings though, the initial cost wouldn't be recooped for a year, but after a year the cost benefit was amazing."

Water usage would be a huge initial savings but according to Honeycutt he said he saved on things like maintenance and paper and just upkeep ended up saving a lot of money overall.

"In my professional opinion, I believe the use of Falcon Waterfree Urinals would result in a significant improvement in public restroom hygiene," said Charles Gerba, professor of environmental biology at the University of Arizona, quoted on Falcon's website.

According to Falcon, there have been around 100,000 waterfree urinals already installed and they are looking at replacing around 50 million more.