Chicago Sun-Times

February 6, 2010

BY FRAN SPIELMAN City Hall Reporter

EXCERPT:

There's been a stench coming from the second floor of City Hall -- and it has nothing to do with the steady stream of Chicago aldermen convicted on corruption charges.

Waterless urinals installed to promote water conservation in the public men's room outside the City Council chambers have turned into a stinky mess. The odor got so bad that the "green" urinals are now being ripped out and replaced with the old-fashioned kind at a cost City Hall has refused to disclose.

The problem is that Chicago's building code requires commercial buildings to use copper pipes in indoor plumbing. But the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers specifically states that drainpipes for waterless urinals "cannot be made of copper pipe, which corrodes."

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Another poorly thought out green idea.

Quite often, "green think" isn't thought out very well.

Unfortunately,"greenthink" becomes groupthink.

I have a dodgy neighbour, he never seems to have a job. Couple a weeks ago he had aquired quite a large amount of scrap electrical cable. He was busy stripping off the insulation and coiling up the copper wire. I asked him if it was worth the effort, "Too true", he said, "scrap merchant pays £3 a kilo for clean copper".

Plumbing must be an expensive business over there.