Tribewanted: Vorovoro

With the upcoming celebrations in mind and the thought of being descended upon by hundreds of grog filled bladders, the powers that wee, sorry I mean be, have decided that a dedicated urinal must be installed in Vorovoro. The composting toilets continue to work exceptionally well (if I say so myself) however the fact is that not always do real men wee in the sea, and we are concerned that Crimestopper does not himself get arrested in his diligent efforts to ensure that unlawful urination does not take place in the loos. Nighttime is not normally a problem for the men, however it has been revealed that even real men are not comfortable peeing openly in the day, and with Team Fiji having cleaned up the bush, there are now precious few places to sneak away to.

Now there are currently at least three schools of thought regarding this matter. I will summarize them as follows:

GURU IVAN
Wee is a valuable resource which should be used on the gardens, but not concentrated in one place and it could be diluted or else distributed with a watering can. Because wee leaves deposits in pipes that smell untowardly, wee should therefore be captured in a receptacle and distributed manually to fruit trees or lawn. For a place that promotes the environment, people should not be encouraged to pee in the ocean or to waste this resource.

GURU CHUCK
Since fresh water is a valuable resource, it is difficult to justify flushing a urinal with it. Therefore seawater should be used to flush it, however this regrettably prevents us from using the wee on the gardens (All those on karmic duties cheer!). Since we are encouraged to wee in the sea anyway, there should be no objection to allowing the effluent to filter through the sand and eventually back into the sea.

GURU RAKESH (LOCAL HEALTH INSPECTOR)
Wee should pass through a septic tank, then filter out through perforated pipe into a banana patch.

So the main issues are:
a. Is pee ok to put on gardens? Would you eat those lettuces?
b. Is it really ok for pee to end up in the sea?
c. Is it wasteful not to recycle pee?
d. Is it wasteful to flush a urinal with fresh water?

We all agreed in today’s forum however, that a discreet house containing a urinal is definitely needed that could be shared between the flip dryers and the drip dryers. This urinal should be located away from eating and sleeping areas, but be nevertheless centrally located.

Given these parameters, we designed a portable cylindrical “vale lailai” made of four separate panels that could be set up in any level spot for a short while, and then moved if necessary. If we followed Guru Chuck, we need to set this up just above the high tide mark where the tree line begins, so that there is access to salt water for flushing.

We also constructed a seat from a 44 gallon drum to be set 2 feet into the sand. The drum contains a plastic insert which has a water seal to hopefully eliminate nasty smells. There is also a pipe set into the drum to duct away any odors. The water seal when flushed with seawater will deliver diluted pee to the sand and filter down. Hopefully, capillary action will not cause the pee to rise upwards through the sand.

Well anyway, we’re going to trial this for a couple of weeks and see if it makes a difference.

Fingers crossed!