Smasharoo wrote:
So you walk past the sink and activate the urinal to lap up some water as it flows down?
Not that I think this really warrants this level of exposition, but, since your an imagination-less idiot unable to game this out for yourself, it's frequently the case that water mains are compromised by large disasters, particularly earthquakes, but others as well. Hence the recommendation to fill bathtubs with potable water prior to a hurricane or other disaster with adequate warning. Toilets and urinals could be sources of literally life saving potable water in a disaster. Knowing it wasn't potable would be somewhat important, considering in almost all cases in the US, it is.
The water that flows
into a toilet or urinal may be potable, but once it's in the bowl (as opposed to the tank or pipes) or any accessible part of a urinal, it's no longer potable water. Cause... Urine and *****, right?
You don't drink the water out of the toilet bowl Smash. You use the water in the tank. Since a urinal doesn't have a tank, the only way to get water that isn't spoiled is if it's running. And if there's water pressure to operate the urinal, there's water pressure to operate the faucet attached to the sink. Hence, while there might be a reason to spend money putting up signs warning people that the water flowing into the urinal *isn't* safe to drink (cause who knows what someone might do for some reason, and liability is liability, and hey regulations, right?). But there's no real reason to spend money removing a sign warning people not to drink the urinal water. Dunno. Maybe there's some obscure regulation stating that it's a violation to put a "not safe to drink" sign on a water source that is safe to drink? That's seriously about the only reason I can think of to do this. Sadly, that's almost certainly the likely explanation, but then that makes it a great example of "rules that make no sense".
Edited, Jun 22nd 2015 1:33pm by gbaji