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> Around 1 million liters (264,172 gallons) of urine are spilled onto the floor and walls of public restrooms each day in the U.S. Each day?! 165 million males

> Around 1 million liters (264,172 gallons) of urine are spilled onto the floor and walls of public restrooms each day in the U.S. Each day?! 165 million males in the USA. So, 16.5 males on average are peeing enough on the walls and floors that if it was collected it would be an entire liter? That seems unlikely. What percentage of that 16.5 is not using public restrooms? What percentage is babies in diapers? Even if the number was as high as half, 8 men leaving behind a collective 1 liter seems way too high.

dgacmu 1y ago
I think you mean 165, not 16.5? But probably, what, only 50m use public restrooms, but some use multiple times, so 150 uses / liter seems reasonable. That's under 10ml of spray / spill per use, which is maybe a little high but not too crazy? I've seen some pretty bad spill results at work...
- whythre 1y ago
  If you consider bar restrooms, that is probably skewing the average higher…
- tgsovlerkhgsel 1y ago
  I think you drastically underestimate how much 10 ml are. That's not achievable with backsplatter, that's called "missing".
  - thfuran 1y ago
    It's almost but not quite exactly two teaspoons, which is certainly a plausibly achievable amount, but as you say, likely not by splatter.
hn_throwaway_99 1y ago
There is a "Daily Urine Splash Estimation in the US" section in their paper (I can't believe I looked this up). There equation basically makes these assumptions: 1. 56 million non-residential urinals in the US. 2. average of .22 L per "void" (a void is one pee session) 3. I think how they estimated average usage per urinal was weird and frankly wrong - they estimated each person would have between 3 and 6 "voids" per day, and each urinal would be used by between 1 and 2 people per day. Anyway, in any case that leads to an estimate of each urinal being used between 3 and 12 times per day. I think this estimate is way, way too high, because at the low end 3 X 56 million = 168 million, so on the low end they are estimating that, on average, every male in the US makes at least one public urinal pee (and, on the high end, 4 public urinal pees!) 4. Based on their data they calculate a value of ~1% (0.965%) of pee gets splashed onto the floor. So you multiply that all together: 56 million * .22 * (3 on the low end, 12 on the high end) * .965% = about 350,000L on the low end, or 1,400,000L on the high end, so they said "on the order of a million liters". Again, I can't believe I spent time looking this up and writing this comment.

dgacmu 1y ago

I think you mean 165, not 16.5? But probably, what, only 50m use public restrooms, but some use multiple times, so 150 uses / liter seems reasonable. That's under 10ml of spray / spill per use, which is maybe a little high but not too crazy? I've seen some pretty bad spill results at work...

whythre 1y ago
If you consider bar restrooms, that is probably skewing the average higher…
tgsovlerkhgsel 1y ago
I think you drastically underestimate how much 10 ml are. That's not achievable with backsplatter, that's called "missing".
- thfuran 1y ago
  It's almost but not quite exactly two teaspoons, which is certainly a plausibly achievable amount, but as you say, likely not by splatter.

hn_throwaway_99 1y ago

There is a "Daily Urine Splash Estimation in the US" section in their paper (I can't believe I looked this up). There equation basically makes these assumptions: 1. 56 million non-residential urinals in the US. 2. average of .22 L per "void" (a void is one pee session) 3. I think how they estimated average usage per urinal was weird and frankly wrong - they estimated each person would have between 3 and 6 "voids" per day, and each urinal would be used by between 1 and 2 people per day. Anyway, in any case that leads to an estimate of each urinal being used between 3 and 12 times per day. I think this estimate is way, way too high, because at the low end 3 X 56 million = 168 million, so on the low end they are estimating that, on average, every male in the US makes at least one public urinal pee (and, on the high end, 4 public urinal pees!) 4. Based on their data they calculate a value of ~1% (0.965%) of pee gets splashed onto the floor. So you multiply that all together: 56 million * .22 * (3 on the low end, 12 on the high end) * .965% = about 350,000L on the low end, or 1,400,000L on the high end, so they said "on the order of a million liters". Again, I can't believe I spent time looking this up and writing this comment.