The National Aquarium in Baltimore has looked to all corners of the place in order to meet their conservation mission -- and that includes the bathrooms.

The aquarium has started installing sinks and toilets that need no electricity. No toilets or sinks need electricity, you may be saying to yourself right now. But those nice sanitary ones that flush and turn on and off themselves do. And with 1.4 million visitors a year, who wants to touch anything in those bathrooms!

These new toilets and sinks run on capacitors that recharge every time they are used. The charge lasts for the next 5-10 uses, according to Bill Kline, the aquarium's facilites project manager. He said it may not save that much energy, but it means they don't have to toss so many of the batteries they had been using.

The toilets are made by a company called Toto USA Inc. and cost about $500 a piece, so the aquarium will roll them out over time in the 11 public bathrooms.

The aquarium has a bunch of other projects that they believe will help them cut down on energy use. It has something called variable freqency drives that mean the pumps they use on the fish tanks don't have to be running all the time. It has censor lights on staff rooms so they turn off when no one is using them. And it has compact fluorescent light bulbs that take far less from the grid than regular bulbs.

The aquarium recycles tons of stuff, uses biodegradable bags in the gift shop and biodegradable plates and napkins in the cafeteria. The coffee served is grown in a sustainable way. The vehicle fleet is carbon neutral. The dolphin show bleachers and the bridge between piers are made from recycled materials. Officials also arrange for area cleanups.

So, next time you're at the aquarium, think about the planet while you're flushing.  

Baltimore Sun photo of Bill Kline using the sink/Lloyd Fox