Dive Brief:
- A $2.34 million publicly-funded project has renovated a historic building in Brooklyn's Prospect Park into the first composting restroom in a New York City public park, according to an emailed press release. Officials say the toilets will save 250,000 gallons of water annually.
- The composting toilets, which opened over the weekend, will use 97% less water than traditional toilets and keep waste out of the city's sewer system. The Wellhouse, one of the park's oldest buildings, will also collect greywater from sinks and floor drains to irrigate the landscape.
- "I think it should be used more," said Alden Maddry, the architect for the Wellhouse project, during an interview with Smart Cities Dive. "It makes sense, in a lot of ways, [for this park] and other parks."
Dive Insight:
New York City has composting toilets in other public areas, like at the Bronx Zoo, but the Prospect Park project is the first to break ground in one of the city's public parks. While it would be difficult to install composting toilets into already existing sewage systems, Maddry said composting toilets make a lot of sense in areas like trails or parks, or more rural areas that either can't easily connect to a sewage line or can't use a traditional septic tank.
Eventually, the material gathered in the composting tanks is broken down to a point where it could be used as compost. New York law doesn't currently allow "human manure" to be spread on public land. However, Maddry told Smart Cities Dive that the tanks probably wouldn't need to be emptied for 10 years — and by then he expects New York will change its laws.
While it would be easy to brush off composting toilets as a fad that are potentially irrelevant to most urban areas, it would be unwise to do so. Urban areas work best when there's a healthy dosage of green space for residents and visitors to enjoy. Composting toilets, which use much less water than conventional toilets, and which wouldn't add stress to a city's already-existing sewage infrastructure, may be a perfect fit for parks and other outdoor spaces that cities create and curate.
