Worth noting that this study was partially funded by the university of Waterloo

Ig nobel prizes were just a few days ago:

https://improbable.com/ig/winners/#ig2026

Edit: The splash free urinal was the winner for physics!

I once joked that these do more for science than Nobel prizes. Now I don't think it's a joke: "wacky but interesting" awards are more important for the advancement of science than "everyone agrees this these people should be even more famous" awards.

I remember being annoyed by splash back in sixth grade. I mocked up an alternative design (essentially, a urinal that tilted away from you), and emailed some friends. They never responded, and I never followed up.

Looking back I feel sad - that's the kind of curiosity to nurture in a kid. But peers are rarely the best group, it would've been better to tell my parents or the right kind of teacher. My friends also could've said something: " I don't know what to do about this but you should tell ms blah blah blah", in a serious way not mocking way.

I'm glad someone else has finally looked at this sticky situation

The recent introduction, in the UK at least, of splash-back reducing urinal … mats (?) has basically solved the problem in my opinion. They’re a disposable (but not single use…) plastic freshening insert with loads of short rubber strands, closely packed.

You can pee on one of these mats and the stream almost aerates itself on impact and you get basically no splashback, I guess with a similar mechanism to how an aerating tap produces a stream of water that doesn’t splash off whatever it hits.

Global sustainability and accessibility seems a bit grandiose lol. It’s just a urinal after all. That being said, it’s been 4 years since Waterloo first determined this and it’s still unavailable to purchase. I’ve been patiently waiting for one to install in my shop but it seems like it’s not all that important for the globe if it’s still unavailable 4 years later.

Design through physics and differential equations.

This paper is Ig® Nobel Physics Prize Winner 2026 https://improbable.com/ig/winners/

Sometimes i am using an urinal and i feel like no engineers were involved in the design. Glad to see someone is actually approaching this with proper science.

There is more to it than the splashback tho. Sometimes it seems that the surfaces that already have splashes on them are not angled properly to lead the water to the drain. This seems to create need to have sharp edge/lip rather than round one, which might be tricky to make resilient in porcelain. But the rounded lip certainly allows for droplet flow towards the user rather than the drain hole.

> The “urine-no,” a hostile antiurination surface:

> Instead of minimising splash, it can instead be maximized by setting […], see Fig. 7a. Although not suitable as a commonly practical urinal, it showcases the design philosophy. Such a surface could be installed outdoors to deter public urination as the offender would fall prey to enhanced splash-back. This hostile surface may be dubbed as “urine-no,” as shown in Fig. 7b.

Love it!

I was in a Costco one, and the men's room urinal was a trough, a strainless steel trough! I thought it was 'cool'.

What they need to do with urinal design is to make one that can catch the wide-spray of someone who sports a PA.

I worked as a temp once in a stae government building. It didn't have enough bathrooms. The toilets were of the type that drained/fastened to the wall instead of the floor. One day, someone big sat down and broke it. There was an angry announcement on the rarely-used building-wide speaker. Nobody owned-up to it.

No amount of engineering can solve the problem that no matter how much you jiggle, you shake, or you dance, the very last drop always falls in your pants.

The discussions section describes a solution to the opposite problem, where you optimise a surface for high splashback to deter people from peeing on it. Whether this makes the authors Lawful Evil or Chaotic Good is a matter of personal opinion, but they're definitely one or the other.

Even if a urinal doesn't splash, there's usually (always?) a decent amount of fine droplets that eject out from the stream since the flow is rather turbulent. On top of that, the fleshy opening is never completely stable.

What we really need is laminar flow!

a surprising paragraph in the middle of the article "The “urine-no,” a hostile antiurination surface"

> droplets which travel back onto the floor and user

I suppose this disproves Tufte's "There are only two industries that call their customers 'users': illegal drugs and software."

I really like the inverted version, where it's almost guaranteed to splash yourself as a deterrent.

Just aim at the sweet spot where your stream smoothly swirls into the plughole. No spray, minimal sound. Most toilets and all urinals have this spot you can hit. In Amsterdam airport they even mark it for you with a crosshairs!

"Canadian who helped design splash-free urinal is proud of his weird science award"

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/2026-ig-nobels-9.733140...

Direct link to the designs (c and d, with d being practical). Great paper honestly.

https://academic.oup.com/view-large/figure/512223725/pgaf087...

Traditional urinals [1] are very effective. As are the steel variants [2]. The latter tend to become very grim over time.

[1]: https://www.hlwashrooms.co.uk/healey--lord-niagara-urinals--...

[2]: https://acornthorn.co.uk/urinals-wcs-cubicles/urinals/ur068-...

> High-speed images of splash events generated by flow from an anatomically accurate nozzle

They had some fun writing this.

European closets have the same issue. Indian closets does not. Actually Indian closets are superior in every way if you have good knees...

They have had these in Japan for a while now it feels like.

Nice, but does it takes into account that some droplets are directly issued from the hose itself ? Not to mention the double stream problem ^u^ Cool paper nonetheless.

It’s not much help if the aim is off

The secret to splash free male urination is..sitting down.

Things we take for granted, like washing hands, were pivotal in reducing illness in hospitals.

If 50% of the population walk out of a public bathroom without tracking urine on their feet or anything else that touched the floor and custodians have 99% less bodily fluids to deal with, that seems like positive progress. Maybe it will move the needle in ways that are unexpected.

I would love to see some Nautilus style urinals because--as a self-interested adult--splashback also hits me if the angle is bad enough. Sometimes I even use the stalls to avoid those porcelain tricksters entirely.

Same attitude that prevents the urinal manufacturers from switching I reckon

There are a lot of reasons why something could get picked up, and sustainability is very low on the list. The manufacturers don't care; they get paid the same regardless of the amount of splashback. Most businesses won't care unless it significantly reduces maintenance overhead, and that's only going to happen if splashed urine is the determining factor in how frequently a bathroom gets cleaned. (As opposed to paper towels littering the floor, supplies running out, or the various disgusting things that happen in stalls.) Even if it were the determining factor, there would likely be pushback when people realize that better urinals lead to less frequent cleanings, and I wouldn't want to be the one having to justify the switch to people. And of course, if you already have a urinal, nobody's eager to buy a new one, and nobody's eager to discuss this particular topic.

The way I would see this happening is if users insist on it. And we likely won't until we experience one of these in real life, which makes it a chicken and egg problem.

There's also the argument that splash mats are a cheaper and even superior approach. That argument is unconvincing to me, because the ones I have experienced have been mostly ineffective, but it sounds like others' experience has been better. Maybe here in the US we just don't have very good ones? As a country, we've always been pretty bad at anything that seems gross. (Not that it's all that different in the rest of the West.) We have this naive faith in the ability of dry toilet paper to clean that which it can not, and disgust at alternative approaches that actually work. But that's a different topic. (Specifically, solids not liquids!)