Ice-Cooled Urinals

Ice-cooled ... Uh, wait... What?

Yes, some bars put lots of ice in their urinals.

This might be used ice, already used to chill bottles and therefore dirty. Or it might be excess ice, produced by their ice machines but not needed.

Why put it in the urinals?

I'm really not sure. But it has to go somewhere, and it would serve to keep down the odor of a typical urinal.

I've only noticed this in the U.S., and it does seem like an "only in America" sort of thing, this being the land of the convenience stores and truck stops with no beverages smaller than one liter.

At left are the ice-cooled stainless steel urinals in Harry's Chocolate Shop (actually a bar) in West Lafayette, Indiana.

There are more pictures of Harry's plumbing on the Stationary Toilets of the U.S.A. page.

Also see the Stainless Steel Toilet page.

At left and below you see a pair of porcelain ice-filled urinals at the Hawk & Dove bar in Washington D.C., on Capitol Hill just east of the Library of Congress on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Rose George's The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters is a fascinating description of sanitation conditions around the world. "2.6 billion people don't have sanitation. [....] Four in ten people have no access to any latrine, toilet, bucket, or box. [....] Poor sanitation, bad hygiene, and unsafe water — usually unsafe because it has fecal particles in it — cause one in ten of the world's illnesses. [....] Diarrhea — nearly 90 percent of which is caused by fecally contaminated food or water — kills a child every fifteen seconds. The number of children who have died from diarrhea in the last decade [1998-2008] exceeds the total number of people killed by armed conflict since the Second World War.

In September 2009, Morna Gregory and Sian James published a book titled Toilets of the World. It's pretty much the same theme that you find here — photographs and commentary on other people's plumbing.

The Porcelain God: A Social History of the Toilet, by Julie Horan, contends that civilization began with the toilet.

Toilet: Public Restrooms and the Politics of Sharing, edited by Laura Noren and Harvey Molotch, has essays by anthropologists, sociologists, and architects on the importance of the toilet, especially for urban dwellers.

Latrinae Et Foricae: Toilets in the Roman World describes the toilets of the Roman Empire from Iberia to Syria, and from North Africa to Hadrian's Wall in Britannia.

Toilets, Bathtubs, Sinks, and Sewers: A History of the Bathroom, explains the history of personal cleanliness and hygiene to children in grades 5-8.

If you're not bored yet, you might be interested in (or at least tolerate):

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