Margarita drinkers with small bladders needn’t fret about wasting water at Habana Outpost any longer. As of this Saturday, the eco-eatery’s two porcelain gods will run on recycled rainwater.
The new system collects rain on the restaurant’s roof and then stores it in cisterns until it is eventually flushed, said Lori Gibbs, the director of Urban Studio Brooklyn, which collaborated with the Outpost on the project.
“We’re also going to have a sink in one of the bathroom stalls, so when you wash your hands, the dirty water will go into a planter, the plants will break down the dirty water, and then it will feed directly into the toilet,” added Gibbs.
Eight students in graduate and under-graduate architecture programs throughout the city joined the Studio to design the environmentally friendly water closets. Gibbs claims the eco-toilets will save an estimated 15,000 gallons of water a week.
“There’s such a limited amount of water and it gets wasted,” said Sean Meenan, owner of the Outpost, a Latin-inspired eatery-cum-bazaar on Fulton Street that also boasts a solar-powered chandelier, recycled plastic tables and a blender that’s hooked up to an exercise bike.
“We were trying to figure out a way to save water and be softly didactic about it,” Meenan said.
