Goon Idea for Canadian Toilet Reuse!

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(Note: that’s not a typo!) A tweet this week from World Toilet Day (@worldtoiletday) sought some group-think ideas on toilet reuse. Not toilet-to-tap recycled water, but actual toilets!

And yes, I did have a suggestion: head-snapping, thought-provoking public artwork similar to this too-odd-to-describe installation in China! So, get ready, Toronto, and visionary Canadian artists, please step forward!

Photos are via www.halohalo.ph, self-described as “The Funniest Filipino Blog.” They live up to their description with this hysterical commentary on the sculpture:

Thousand of toilet sculpture in China. I’m not surprise when i saw this sculpture because everybody knows that Chinese people are goon on this.

Eschew the Fat: How Gross is This?

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How did I miss this Halloween treat?

Scottish Water advises folks to “Be afraid, be very afraid” as they take us deep into the sewer to observe with our own eyes what it looks like when fats are dumped down the drain. Go ahead and “see what’s lurking in a Highland sewer.”

Please note, may not be suitable for squeamish viewers! (This is exactly the sort of thing that motivated the Thames Singing Sewermen to break into song!)

Absorbing a Freaky Frog Fact Via a Boulder Fountain

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I spotted this terrific water fountain in downtown Boulder, Colorado on Pearl Street. It was donated by the Communication Arts department of University of Colorado. While it offers some great food for thought, I’ve delved deeper into the hydration of frogs. According to wiki.answers.com,

A characteristic of all amphibians is permeable skin. They do have the ability to absorb water through their skin. It is called cutaneous absorption. It is very uncommon to observe frogs drinking water orally. Their primary means of hydrating is by absorbing water, rather than drinking it.

Drought Mneumonic Monument

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In the unlikey event that local citizens forget, a public sculpture was erected in Taebaek, Kangwon-Do, South Korea, as a reminder of the hardship and pain of drought and water shortages and the continuing need to conserve. From BaboMike on Flickr is this photo of the Taebaek Water Monument, which was

“…erected earlier this year as a reminder of last winters drought. We were on strict water rationing for a few months, allowed only 1 or 2 hours of water per day. The monument is created out of old plastic water bottles.”

Water Monument, Taebaek, Kangwon-Do, South Korea

Detail: Water Monument, Taebaek, Kangwon-Do, South Korea

Public Funding Well Spent…75 Years Ago.

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From the stimulus program 75 years past…this WPA Poster (Water Supply #4) was created for the Federal Art Project series on the history of civic services in New York City…in 1936, when “an average of 930,000,000 gallons is consumed daily.” By the artist Vera Bock (see other works by this artist here.)

Via American Memory, http://memory.loc.gov and stored at the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C

Vittel: It Must Be the Water. And the Budget.

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Vittel is a brand of bottled mineral water from the northeastern French spa town of the same name. Sounds quaint, but the brand has since 1992 been owned by the not-so-quaint ginormous multinational Nestlé.

That helps to explain why ginormous multinational ad agency Ogilvy and Mather France has produced  these well-crafted, quirky, faux-quaint spots as part of a new ad campaign for Vittel, “It Must Be the Water.” And they’re big, really big.

No Blame in the Catchment Detox Game

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If you imagine you could do a better job managing waterways than the powers that be, now you can put your theories to the test, with no one to blame for bad decisions but yourself!

Catchment Detox is an easy-to-play but tough-to-master online simulation game from Australia. You’re in charge of successfully managing a river catchment while creating a sustainable, healthy economy. In 100 turns, you decide how and where to plant crops, when and where to log forests, where and when to build factories or set up national parks. Not so easy, because to do well you’ve got to make money, provide adequate water, skirt environmental problems and still provide food and economic support for the citizenry!

Keep your eye on the impact stats to compare the economic and environmental pros and cons of your decisions.

Some activities bring in more money, but use a lot of water. Others environmental benefits, but not much income. You can add or remove as many activities as you like (until you run out of money and/or turns!)

Good thing I’m not making any such decisions…here’s a screen capture of my game on Turn 20…water status “terrible” and almost broke! And logging those forests would be quick money in the bank….hmmmmm.

Sewer Pipe Suite Life

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A concrete sewer pipe as hotel room? That’s repurposing for a practical purpose! DasPark Hotel is the sort of wild idea you’d expect to be just another conceptual prototype, but this creation of Austrian art grad Andreas Strauss is real and operational.

Located in Linz, Austria, the unique hotel adds a back wall, large front door and small window to standard concrete sewer pipes to create an affordable stay for students and other adventurous travelers.

From dasparkhotel.net,

The external simplicity surrounds an unexpectedly comfortable interior – full headroom, double bed, storage, light, power, woolly blanket and light cotton sleeping bag. All other hotelery devices (Toilets, showers, minibar, cafe, etc) are supplied by the surrounding public space.

Just how affordable, you ask? The cost is the biggest surprise of all.

Because we obtain sanitation, breakfast and other hotel facilities from existing public infrastructure, it is possible for us to work with the very simple, user-friendly “pay as you wish” system. A night in dasparkhotel costs just as much as you can afford or want to pay.

(Tipped by a post on bookpaperscissors.tumblr.net, thanks!)