A urinal target, sometimes known by the specific types urinal fly or urinal bee, is an image or mark placed inside a urinal to encourage users to aim in a particular place so as to avoid messes and reduce cleaning costs.
A urinal target, sometimes known by the specific types urinal fly or urinal bee, is an image or mark placed inside a urinal to encourage users to aim in a particular place so as to avoid messes and reduce cleaning costs.
In late-19th century Great Britain, people would put pictures of bees in urinals and toilets. They served as a target, but also a joke about the pronunciation of the honeybee's genus, Apis. [1] [2] [3] Engineer and businessman Thomas Crapper even put a picture of a bee in the toilets his company produced, down below the water. [4] [5] In 1954, an inventor patented a propeller contraption suspended over a toilet, attached from the exterior. [2] [6] In 1976 a dentist in New Jersey patented a bullseye decal he called the Tinkle Target, citing how "parents, janitors, and others responsible for this cleanliness have often despaired the human male sloppiness of failing to direct urine into the proper receptacles". [2] [6] [7]
In the early 1990s, Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport introduced pictures of flies to its men's room urinals in an effort to reduce "spillage", or the amount of urine which spills onto the floor and must then be cleaned. Though sometimes credited to Aad Kieboom, a manager at the airport, according to Kieboom it was the cleaning department's manager, Jos van Bedaf, who had the idea. [2] Van Bedaf remembered, during his time as a soldier in 1960s, that someone had drawn a dot in one of the urinals, and that the latrine with that urinal was cleaner than others. He suggested a fly because, he said, it is the animal people would most like to urinate on. [1] Flies connote unsanitary conditions and are both widely disliked without being frightening like some other disliked insects. [2] [8]
They have been installed in urinals at airports, stadiums, and schools in many places around the world. [1] [7] [9]
In Japan, pictures of ladybugs are also used as urinal targets. [10]
Urinal design often contends with issues of cleanliness, changing their structure or adding elements like screens to avoid spilling or splashing. [2] Targets are one such intervention to get users to direct a stream of urine to an ideal location. [2] While the flies in the Schiphol Airport urinals are etched, they can also be baked into the porcelain or stuck on as a sticker afterwards. [1] One form of sticker is temperature sensitive, with the fly disappearing when heat is applied. [11]
While flies and bees are well-known, targets can also take the form of written words, a dot, a flag, or a tree. [2] [1] Some urinals at the University of Louisville use a logo of the school's rival, the University of Kentucky. [2] In Iceland, some urinals displayed pictures of bankers during the 2008-11 financial crisis. [2] Targets can also be objects like a piece of wood or a Cheerio. [1] [2]
Employees of Schiphol Airport conducted trials to test how effective their etched images of flies were. The result was an 80% reduction in spillage, cutting cleaning costs by about 8%. [12] : 4 [2]
Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein included urinal targets as an example of what they call "nudging" in their 2008 book Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness. [12] According to nudge theory, positive reinforcement and indirect suggestions can influence the behavior and decision-making of groups or individuals in predictable ways, without using rigid rules. [8] Thaler, a behavioral economist, called it his favorite example of a nudge. [13] Thaler and Sunstein wrote that "It seems that men usually do not pay much attention to where they aim, which can create a bit of a mess, but if they see a target, attention and therefore accuracy are much increased". [12] : 4
Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, known informally as Schiphol Airport, is the main international airport of the Netherlands, and is one of the major hubs for the SkyTeam airline alliance. It is located 9 kilometres southwest of Amsterdam, in the municipality of Haarlemmermeer in the province of North Holland. It is the world's third busiest airport by international passenger traffic in 2023. With almost 72 million passengers in 2019, it is the third-busiest airport in Europe in terms of passenger volume and the busiest in Europe in terms of aircraft movements. With an annual cargo tonnage of 1.74 million, it is the 4th busiest in Europe. AMS covers a total area of 6,887 acres of land. The airport is built on the single-terminal concept: one large terminal split into three departure halls.
Urination is the release of urine from the bladder to the outside of the body. Urine is released through the urethra and exits the penis or vulva through the urinary meatus in placental mammals, but is released through the cloaca in other vertebrates. It is the urinary system's form of excretion. It is also known medically as micturition, voiding, uresis, or, rarely, emiction, and known colloquially by various names including peeing, weeing, pissing, and euphemistically going number one. The process of urination is under voluntary control in healthy humans and other animals, but may occur as a reflex in infants, some elderly individuals, and those with neurological injury. It is normal for adult humans to urinate up to seven times during the day.
Behavioral economics is the study of the psychological, cognitive, emotional, cultural and social factors involved in the decisions of individuals or institutions, and how these decisions deviate from those implied by classical economic theory.
A urinal is a sanitary plumbing fixture for urination only. Urinals are often provided in public toilets for male users in Western countries. They are usually used in a standing position. Urinals can be with manual flushing, automatic flushing, or without flushing, as is the case for waterless urinals. They can be arranged as single sanitary fixtures or in a trough design without privacy walls. Urinals designed for females also exist but are rare. It is possible for females to use stand-up urinals using a female urination device.
Cass Robert Sunstein is an American legal scholar known for his work in constitutional law, administrative law, environmental law, and behavioral economics. He is also The New York Times best-selling author of The World According to Star Wars (2016) and Nudge (2008). He was the administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Obama administration from 2009 to 2012.
Richard H. Thaler is an American economist and the Charles R. Walgreen Distinguished Service Professor of Behavioral Science and Economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. In 2015, Thaler was president of the American Economic Association.
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A pit latrine, also known as pit toilet, is a type of toilet that collects human waste in a hole in the ground. Urine and feces enter the pit through a drop hole in the floor, which might be connected to a toilet seat or squatting pan for user comfort. Pit latrines can be built to function without water or they can have a water seal. When properly built and maintained, pit latrines can decrease the spread of disease by reducing the amount of human feces in the environment from open defecation. This decreases the transfer of pathogens between feces and food by flies. These pathogens are major causes of infectious diarrhea and intestinal worm infections. Infectious diarrhea resulted in about 700,000 deaths in children under five years old in 2011 and 250 million lost school days. Pit latrines are a low-cost method of separating feces from people.
A bedpan or bed pan is a device used as a receptacle for the urine and/or feces of a person who is confined to a bed and therefore not able to use a toilet or chamber pot.
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A urine collection device or UCD is a device that allows the collection of urine for analysis or for purposes of simple elimination. UCDs of the latter type are sometimes called piddle packs.
A female urination device (FUD), personal urination device (PUD), female urination aid, or stand-to-pee device (STP) is a device that can be used to more precisely aim the stream of urine while urinating standing upright. Variations range from basic disposable funnels to more elaborate reusable designs. Personal urination devices have increased in popularity since the 1990s. They are used for outdoor occupations & recreation, gender affirmation/safety, and medical reasons.
A female urinal is a urinal designed for the female anatomy to allow for ease of use by women and girls. Different models enable urination in standing, semi-squatting, or squatting postures, but usually without direct bodily contact with the toilet. Sitting models also exist, and are designed for body contact with the urinal.
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An interactive urinal is a device that allows users to play video games or control interactive displays while urinating. Several designs have been produced to date, usually comprising a urinal fitted with a pressure sensor to measure the strength and position of the urine flow and an LCD screen mounted above the urinal to provide animated graphics.
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Lucia A. Reisch is a German behavioural economist and social scientist by training and the El-Erian Professor of Behavioural Economics and Policy at the University of Cambridge since September 2021. Since April 2022 the Professorship is located at the Cambridge Judge Business School. She is a Professorial Fellow and the Deputy Dean of Queens’ College, Cambridge.
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madamePee is a mobile female urinal, without contact and without water supply. It is designed to be used at public events such as concerts or music festivals, but also in more durable situations such as construction sites, public gardens, etc.
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