Sloan Valve Receives Cradle to Cradle Certification

Sloan Valve Company has become the first plumbing company in the world to receive the Cradle to Cradle Design certification for its products. MBDC, the product process and design firm that evaluates companies and their products based on their "eco-effectiveness," certified two Sloan plumbing products for silver level status: the Uppercut dual flush flushometer and the Royal model 111 manual flushometer.

"This certification is the result of 10 months of exhaustive review of our manufacturing processes and materials," says Jim Allen, director of Sloan's Water Efficiency Division. "MBDC's Cradle to Cradle certification process is the most thorough and rigorous third party product evaluation. This certification goes beyond our products' water saving attributes; it is a true assessment of the overall, combined impact of Sloan's manufacturing, material selection, recycled/recovered material use, and all processes related to product creation."

The Uppercut dual flush flushometer becomes the first and only dual flush product in the world to be Cradle to Cradle silver certified. This distinction assures specifiers and owners that the Uppercut will offer high water efficiency, and it was manufactured and certified to a high environmental standard. All Uppercuts are made in the United States by union labor.

MBDC, a Charlottesville, VA, product process and design firm, was founded in 1995 to promote and shape the implementation of eco-effective design principles. Instead of perpetuating cradle to grave products, dumped in landfills after fulfilling their initial intended purpose, MBDC's Cradle to Cradle design concept recognizes products whose materials are continuously circulated in closed loops. Designing for cradle to cradle product lifecycles, for instance, plans for sustainability and product re-use, which reduces reliance on virgin material inputs and lessens overall material costs.

Sloan, which offsets 100% of the energy used in its Franklin Park, IL, headquarters with renewable energy, is the recipient of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Green Power Leadership Award for its Green Power Purchase. Sloan's corporate mission toward sustainability also includes other initiatives, such as installing more energy efficient lighting, which will significantly reduce its carbon footprint.

Sustainability is also reflected in Sloan's material choices: About 89% of Sloan's flushometers are made from brass casting alloy, 99% of which is from recycled sources, and the flushometers are completely recyclable or reusable in remodel projects.

Sloan Valve Company is a leading manufacturer of water efficient plumbing systems and has been in operation since 1906. Headquartered in Franklin Park, IL, the company manufactures plumbing products and accessories for commercial, industrial, and institutional markets worldwide.

How Much Water Do You Need To Flush?

As plumbing products continue to become more water-efficient, including 1.0 gallon-per-flush water closets and urinals utilizing only one pint of water to flush, there's greater interest in low-consumption fixtures. The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) is expected to soon bring more clarity to some of these low-consumption flushing terms by defining them in applicable standards.

John Watson, director of technical services for plumbing manufacturer Sloan Valve Company and a member of the ASME A112.19.2 Working Group, says that no "official" definition has yet emerged in an approved consensus standard for High-Efficiency Urinals (HEU) and High-Efficiency Toilets (HET).

ASME will, however, likely provide those definitions when it next updates the ASME A.112.19.2 standard. For now, HEUs and HETs can be defined as follows:

An HEU is a urinal that performs to the current ASME A.112.19.2 performance standards while using no more than 0.5 gpf/1.9 Lpf to flush. This is a reduction from the current standard of 1.0 gpf/3.8 Lpf as required by the Energy Policy Act of 1992. By this definition, waterfree urinals are categorized as HEUs.

An HET is a water closet that meets the current performance requirements outlined in ASME A.112.19.2 but does so by either flushing at a maximum of 1.28 gpf/4.8 Lpf or by deploying a dual-flush device, which based on a typical 2:1 liquid/solid use ratio, averages a total flush volume of 1.28 gpf while achieving a MaP test score of removing at least 350 grams of waste.

"Dual-flush Flushometers are rising in popularity," says Watson, "partly because they easily meet HET performance standards."

In smaller buildings, Watson explains, it may be more advantageous to install manual dual-flush Flushometers in restrooms, because they have a regular set of users. "These users are more familiar with and conscientious about the facility, which means they are more likely to learn how to manually operate a dual-flush Flushometer to its full potential," he says.

But restrooms frequented by newcomers can certainly benefit from manual dual-flush Flushometers as well. Sloan includes signage with its UPPERCUT® dual-flush Flushometers, which can be affixed near the flush valve to quickly educate users on its usage and benefits. Proper operation by even a fraction of the users can equate to significant water savings.

Plus, as dual-flush flush valves become more common, restroom users will just intuitively know how to operate them—much in the same way they learned to adapt to sensor-operated Flushometers when they first emerged on the market.

Large commercial or institutional buildings with a transient population or restrooms in high-traffic areas such as airports, entertainment venues, and shopping malls may gain greater efficiencies from automatic operation. "For these restrooms, it makes sense to install the new electronic dual-flush Flushometers, which automatically initiate the appropriate flush cycle, depending on the amount of time the user remains in the sensor range," says Watson.