Plumbing involves providing clean water, managing wastewater, and ensuring water quality for safe use. It also includes handling various other systems such as gas distribution, drainage, and laboratory systems.

When a plumbing engineer receives the design of a health care building — our minds gravitate to designing the system to optimize all the different considerations I mentioned above — with the fixture layout the architect has developed. But what if the layout changed? What if the amount of fixtures were reduced? 

Have you heard of terms like "circular economy" or "EPR"? They describe regulations aimed at reducing packaging waste and promoting recycling. Let's explore California's draft regulation for implementing the Plastic Pollution Prevention and Packaging Producer Responsibility Act.

This year starts the code development cycle for the building and safety codes to be published in 2027 for the United States (U.S.).

Codes and standards are intended to provide a minimum level of protection of the public’s health, safety and welfare. And, generally, these documents accomplish that intended purpose in the urban/metropolitan areas of the United States. However, that may not be accurate when one gets into the rural or more isolated areas of the country.