Nov 7 2012
Falcon Waterfree Technologies LLC announced today that Bard College replaced its flushing urinals with Falcon Waterfree urinals. The urinals will help Bard College’s sustainability efforts by saving over 500,000 gallons of water a year or more. This water savings will increase Bard’s STARS (Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System) score that measures how environmentally friendly a college or university campus is.
“Along with upgrades to our water treatment plant, the waterfree urinals will help us save a significant amount of water,” said Laurie Husted, Sustainability Manager at Bard College.
With the change from traditional flush urinals to waterfree urinals, the maintenance staff was at first concerned. However, after training, maintenance staff agreed that waterfree urinal maintenance was actually easier than flush urinal maintenance.
“Initially there was push back, probably because they feared the unknown, but that ended once we trained all staff. They realized that waterfree urinals actually are easier to clean than a regular flush urinal,” said Brian Kiel, Assistant Director of Environmental Services.
According to Bard College Lead Plumber Bruce Meyers, “We are already finding that cartridge changes are not needed as frequently as we first thought. No odor, no slow draining, no complaints. It’s a much better product than the flush urinals we had.”
In an effort to promote educational institutions’ water conservation, Falcon is partnering with colleges across the country to help them implement water saving solutions.
“Bard College continues to be a leader on green issues in academe, in this case by implementing sustainable solutions to preserve one of our most precious resources: water,” said Bard College President Leon Botstein.
“Partnering with Bard College was a natural fit for us because the school has already done so much to preserve our environment,” said Marc Nathanson, Chairman of Falcon. “We’re proud to support Bard, which will lead the way for other academic institutions to stop wasting the planet’s most precious resource: fresh water!”
In addition to offering several academic programs in sustainability, Bard College is also working on implementing sustainable practices on campus by focusing on efficient transportation, flow of goods and energy use. Some of the initiatives currently in place include reducing deliveries of bottled water, recycling waste, operating a free campus shuttle and participating in a car sharing service (Zipcar) that enables students to avoid car ownership.