The Creekside Community Centre is located in the former 2010 Olympics Athletes Village in Vancouver, BC. It's a beautiful place, employing a group of smiling young faces. But go into one of the bathrooms there and you'll find something very peculiar:
To be clear, that is a flushed toilet! Flush it as many times as you like and the colour of the water remains the yellow-brown colour you see in the photo. Not an especially appealing sight for most visitors.
Note: These bathrooms were in the news earlier this year.
Water conservation in a city built amidst a rain forest, around a massive river, surrounded by deep, large glacial lakes. Is there anything crazier?
@the rat: ".. is there anything crazier?"
Well... how about building "low cost" housing ON existing streets in North America's second most congested city?
er.. clarification because the level of crazy is easily missed. Part of the plan is to obtain building space through removal of physical road pavement by narrowing existing streets and removing back lanes.
Would your dog drink from that bowl?
I used to live in Vancouver. Arrived there on a train from Northern Ontario at the ripe old age of 7 in 1969 and have been running away from it since 1990. I have not once regretted leaving that festering pustule of a city. I occasionally head in to the west-end to visit my dear old dad, but find that I can't stay more than a few hours without feeling as though I want to strangle some kittens. Even the views make me angry. Mostly on account of that gigantic eco-crucifix sitting ever stationary atop Grouse Mountain. I am getting a headache just thinking about it. Hopefully it gets nuked in the first salvo.
Hey, c'mon, they're running out of water in Africa!
That's why we need to conserve our water in Vankonger and Hicktoria.
Well, that's what Dr Fruit Fly told me.
We use only pre-peed in water. If you look behind the toilet in the wall you'd probably find that the pee trap is part of a circular pipe that leads back to the tank. Now that's what I call recyling, Dr. Fruitfly would be proud.
Well said rat.
The craziness in Vanloser never ends, the current council are a bunch of eco-losers supported by US foundations funding, the very same foundations that want to stop (and will likely succeed because the populace are that stupid) the proposed oil pipeline to the West coast. They (Vanloser city) project-managed the Olympic village which explains why it is such a disaster-but never mind as long as the populace think it is a "beautiful place" who cares if the rents are unaffordable, nobody can afford to heat it, the plumbing system malfunctions on an hourly basis and the city will perpetually lose money on the project. I guarantee that you will hear another story about the LEED gold heating system being torn out or modified beyond recognition within five years.
Anybody who has been around construction longer than a week could look at that picture and tell you the tile job is terrible, the access panel is not secured properly (all the better to hide drugs in), and the terrazzo floor is improperly finished. Quality control on visible building elements is usually far better than the concealed elements, I dread to think what else is wrong.
Good enough for Vanloser though perhaps they will burn it down next time their hockey team loses a game.
How many cities in the western world is it necessary to put up a sign advising people not to drink from the toilet?
robw, There isn't a "pee trap" built into the drain after the toilet, P-traps are built into the toilets so they don't need to be additionally trapped.
I'm guessing the water in those w/c's somewhere travels through cast iron drain pipes from the roof collectors on their way to the cistern in the basement The linked article here states that they use water collected, and only draw on municipal water supply if they don't have enough rain. As it's a commercial building, it would have to be cast or fire rated PVC drain pipe, and cast is cheaper, hence the rust.
http://www.sabmagazine.com/blog/2011/08/10/2011-sab-award-winner-creekside-community-centre/
That looks pretty sanitary.
And they live beside an ocean.
Does not compute.
Is anyone really surprised a bunch of Eco-Freaks in charge of City Hall in Vancover, pissed hard earned money taxed away on fantasy construction?
For the record, in our house I have the old-style tanks (house is new, tanks old-style by choice), and they give a good flush each time, no stupid buttons depending on whether your have done this or that.
This an engineering problem after all.
some public schools have gone this route as well.
reuse, recycle, reduce. being taught your children with your tax dollars.
enjoy your evening
You can thank Gordon Campbell.
Just think of all the children that now will not be balled out for not flushing the toilet.
The part that makes no sense to me is why we need treated water to flush toilets. Why not run 2 lines to all new houses and commercial buildings with treated and untreated for the appropriate usage. Raw water could be drawn out of the same reservoir without going to the treatment plants for purposes not considered potable. As someone who considers pretty well all green programs a waste of time, this one would actually make sense to me. Any downside to this ?
Cascadian, exactly. Furthermore, the Vancouver Humane Society fits right in with the George Soros paid for council.
Gus, great question.
Occupiers living on the roof?
Peter J, this is great in theory.
In practice:
A. Run 2 separate lines to each house / building. Doubling the amount of pipe, valves, valve accesses, and all the related maintenance. We just DOUBLED the costs of distribution.
B. There will be mistakes. How many people will be sickened and die from cross connecting the water lines? We already have stories of cross connected sewer WASTE and potable/fresh water lines. Imagine the likelihood of cross connecting or substituting non-potable for potable lines? Look at today. How many times do experienced plumbers hook the Hot water to the toilet? Too many. I know my father did it in our basement bathroom when I was growing up. They did it in the 2nd floor Men's in a new office building they built at my last job site.
C. The people that have saved the most people in the last 200 years are not doctors or politicians, they are Civil Engineers, who brought us clean, safe water and sanitary sewers. These heroes have saved Billions of People. No Cholera, No Typhus, No Dysentery. Children are now expected to grow up and become adults. They do not die of the diarrhea or the runs when babies anymore.
Let me get this straight: using rainwater for toilets instead of treated water is a bad idea because it offends the delicate sensibilities of some people?
Come on.
When you flush a toilet, bacteria from the toilet flush goes airborne and gets on things like face cloths , tooth brushes hair brushes etc (source Dr. Oz). So using untreated water from the ground in toilets could introduce things like E-Coli and other harmful bacteria etc especially if we are using so called natural fertilizers like manure which could result in all sorts of social diseases.
When we evolved out of the middle ages using treated water in our homes this helped reduce disease and prevented death from diseases.
Why do our Eco-terrorist friends keep insisting that we go back to the old ways. Don't you think our ancestors made these improvements to our lives for a reason when they had the technology?
If you take the Eco's argument to the extreme why have toilets inside at all, we can just all urinate and deficate in the streets like they did in the good old days.
It would be natural.
This reminds me a whole lot of conspiracy theorists that create alternative facts to support their narrative. I really can't believe that no one has picked up on the fact that the water in the toilet is not a yellow-brown colour. You can easily tell because the water at the top of the bowl near the front is clear which means that all the water in the bowl is clear. What you are looking at is the stain in the porcelain probably caused by people leaving without flushing the toilet and the cleaning staff not doing their job properly. Pour some Javex in the bowl and let it sit and I'd be willing to bet the stain will mostly disappear. At least, that's the way I see it
There is no way to waste, lose or get rid of water. Gravity ensures that boosting a cup of water off the surface, past earth orbit and into space would cost millions, if not billions of dollars. You can't get rid of water even if you tried.The whole idea of 'conserving' water is absurd environmentalist propaganda.
This reminds me of conspiracy theorists who create a whole set of alternative and erroneous facts to support their narrative. I can't believe that no one has brought this point up so far. The fact is the water in the bowl is not yellow-brown. You can tell because the water at the top and near the front of the bowl is clear, which means the rest of the water is clear. What you are looking at is the stain in the porcelain probably caused by people leaving without flushing the toilet and cleaning staff who don't do their job properly. Dump some Javex in the bowl and let is sit for a while and, I'd be willing to bet that most of the stain will disappear. I suspect there isn't a dog in the city that wouldn't drink out of this bowl. At least, that's the way I see it.
Allen Fotheringham described Vancouver as a setting in search of a city,He was right.
The Eco-tards now want to toll all roads leading into the city, Hello Detroit!
@ rd at October 19, 2012 2:38 AM
All good points although color coding lines and connection points would eliminate much of the hazard. From what I have read it is not the lack of water, but cost of treating water that is so expensive, 2/3 which is flushed down the toilet. Retrofitting would be horribly expensive but new commercial or subdivisions could benefit. No ?.
Peter J
The water treatment costs are mostly on the effluent end. Sewage treatment pants cost $100 millions to $ billions. Treating the average river water involves filtering and chlorination. Neither requires a lot of capital plant. For many cities, we use well water, and chlorination is the only treatment used for potable water. I have a personal well, and like millions, there is no treatment. And the septic system cost 5X as much as the well.
And there will still be "tragic" accidents cross connecting water lines. No matter how careful you are.