No country can rival Japan when it comes to toilets. The local market (worth several billion US dollars) is controlled by two companies, Toto and Inax, both of which are also active in the USA. Especially Inax recently managed to make a name for themselves as an innovator by offering a music-playing and light-emitting toilet for home use (Inax Regio) or a model that supports SD cards (Inax Asteo) in the last months.

Now the same company developed Musui Shoubenki [JP], two toilets (a public urinal and a Western style toilet) that cut down the volume of water usually needed to operate rest rooms by 54% on a yearly basis (CO2 reduction in the same time frame: 6.1 tons).

The public urinal is particularly interesting since it works without a water connection. A special cartridge is placed below the drain outlet, containing a liquid that floats on top of the urine, kills off bacteria and blocks smells. Inax claims the cartridge can be used up to 10,000 times and can then be replaced.

6 carts cost $290. The public urinal has a list price of $1,050, while the Western style toilet is priced at $3,600.

The new technology is also the result of the company’s internal plan to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by 80% by 2050.