Posted on 12/06/2012 7:20:37 PM PST by ExxonPatrolUs
Commode, can, the Oval Office, and the Super Bowl. Throne, pot, loo, John. The royal flush.
The toilet, in its illustrious career, has earned a variety of affectionate nicknames. But variety extends well beyond just puns when talking about those porcelain perches: Eco- friendly options, from low-flow to entirely waterless toilets, are an important part of bringing water sustainability into homes. Toilet flushes account for about 30 percent of in-home water usage, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Toilets consume more water in American homes than any other individual type of appliance, such as showers, dishwashers, and washing machines.
And with climate change, drought and demand straining fresh water resources, methods of decreasing water consumption are increasingly important to environmentalists and policy-makers. “It’s easy to think that we have this enormous indispensable water supply, that we do have about 20 percent of the world's supply of surface fresh water right here at the Great Lakes,” said Nancy Tuchman, an aquatic ecology researcher and director of the Institute of Urban Environmental Sustainability at Loyal University.
"We have the biggest supply on the continent, but it doesn’t mean that it’s going to be there forever – and especially with global climate change and all this evaporation and little precipitation that could build the water back up. So we need to conserve.” Studies show that Great Lakes water levels are dropping toward record lows.
Toilet Alternatives
One radical toilet-based solution takes water out of the equation altogether. A so-called “dry toilet” can begin as little more than a bucket filled with a layer of a carbon-rich material such as dry leaves, sawdust or newspaper. “For five bucks, or if I find a bucket and have some carbon material, I can actually build out a solution really fast,” said Nancy Klehm, who founded a Chicago-based eco-solutions company, Social Ecologies, in 2010. “It takes hardly any capital; it just takes some ingenuity and knowing what to do with it.”
After a visit to the dry toilet, users cover their wastes with a new layer of carbon- rich material. Once the bucket is full, the contents can be dumped out and composted.
Klehm organized a dry toilet trial-run for a group of 22 Chicagoans from 2008 to 2010, and she continues to work with dry toilets and composting today. For the aptly dubbed "Humble Pile" program, she collected waste from participants for a three- month period, and then composted it with more carbon-rich material for two years. “People were really surprised by how much they liked dry toilets,” she said. Participants in the aptly dubbed “Humble Pile” program liked the fact that the toilets were quiet and mobile, and that the toilets could be designed ergonomically. Most of all, they were pleasantly surprised that the toilets didn’t smell.
It's important that anyone considering a dry toilet understand how to handle the waste. "People can generally compost anywhere at anytime," Klehm said. "They just need to do it well so not to present a nuisance or attract animals."
When dealing with the dry toilet waste rather than food or landscape waste, it is important to kill pathogens from the human body by composting at high temperature created by heat-generating microbes. "Composting human waste should not be taken on unless someone is a very skilled composter," Klehm said. When done correctly, though, microbial digestion should naturally turn waste to soil and the process should be odor-free.
After the two year "Humble Pile" composting period that Klehm took on for the participants, she returned the compost to its original owners, which she said grew participant’s appreciation for dry toilets even more. “They were really excited that they were building soil," she said. “It’s a larger issue than just how much water we’re using,” explained sustainable water expert Wendy Pabich, who holds a Ph.D. in environmental engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “When you buy a dry compost toilet, that’s all about recycling the nutrients and carbon in our waste, rather than sending them to rivers where the organic and nutrient load drive putrefaction – algal groves, fish kills and ecosystem changes.”
Dry toilets probably aren’t for everybody. “The ‘yuk’ factor is definitely there,” but that reaction is largely a cultural bias, Pabich said. She added that commercially produced dry toilets have eliminated many of the un- pleasantries consumers might expect. But there are many other, more conventional toilet options for people looking to lessen their lavatory’s environmental impact.
If every American home were to swap out old toilets for new, water efficiency- certified toilets, the EPA estimates that it would collectively save 640 billion gallons of water every year – equivalent to two week’s flow over Niagara Falls.
Toilets from before 1980 can use up to 7 gallons of water per flush, but federal regulations require that new toilets use no more than 1.6 gallons per flush. Simply by replacing old toilets, people can dramatically reduce their water consumption. And new dual-flush toilets (with one setting for wet wastes and one for solids] or low-flow toilets), marked with an EPA WaterSense label, are certified to use at least 20 percent less water than that national baseline.
A water-efficient home
In her recent book, “Taking on Water,” Pabich shared her personal experience renovating her entire home to be more water-efficient. The process involved installing meters on every water-consuming element of the house, analyzing the results, and devising ways to minimize water consumption. She chose the low-flow toilets, for instance.
Improving water sustainability at home need not be so involved for everyone, though. “I don’t think people need to go through all the effort I went through, nor to the level of analysis and understanding,” Pabich said. Instead, they can focus on a few core changes that Pablich shared in the form of a “Water Cheat Sheet” when she spoke at Chicago Ideas Week in October.
Some changes are a matter of updating home hardware. Pabich switched out her hold toilets and self-installed low-flow alternatives. “It’s not very hard, and it’s not very expensive,” she said. Toilets, though, are only a piece of the puzzle. The cheat sheet prescribes other improvements such as water-efficient washing machines and dishwashers.
Other conservation measures
requires behavioral changes, though. From eating less meat (livestock consume an enormous amount of water) to turning off the shower while lathering, small adjustments in daily routines add up. Turn off the sink while you brush your teeth, and don’t run your dishwasher until it’s full. “One thing that’s become really clear to me is the impact of our aggregate decision- making,” Pabich said. If each one of us does something to reduce our direct water use or our larger water footprint, by eating less meat or replacing our toilets, the collective impact is significant.”
The big picture: water pricing
Though individual choices have major impacts on water conservation, achieving long-term sustainability will require top-down policy changes too.
“There are clearly some major structural problems,” Pabich said. “Water is entirely underpriced, and the second that price signal is corrected I think things will dramatically change.”
Bill Christiansen, program planner for the Chicago-based Alliance for Water Efficiency, agreed. “Here in Chicago, the water rates are very reasonable, so that’s probably not going to be a motivator for lots of people.”
The city of Chicago will charge $2.89 per 1,000 gallons of water beginning Jan. 1, 2013, up from $2.51 this year. The rate is scheduled to increase again for 2014 and 2015 in increments of 15 percent. Sewer rates will be at 92 percent of water bills for 2013, but will hit 100 percent in 2015. “I think the public will be most interested in water efficiency when the need is more urgent,” Christiansen said.
People such as Klehm and Pabich promote water-efficiency initiatives, but it will take a concerted effort of people to achieve all the necessary changes.
“It requires another level of involvement in your home,” Klehm said. “So your home is not just this passive space that you retreat into at the end of the night with your carryout Chinese food and pop in a Netflix movie.”
“You have to watch the flows of all the different things that are coming into and out of your house. And there aren’t a lot of people who want to have that level of engagement in their homes.”
You should say such terrible things on a public forum!
You might give them ideas!!!!
We just remodeled our baths in San Diego. The low flow toilets we installed work fine..first time, but they now have larger flush valves. Same amount..faster flush.
We also installed a on demand hot water circulating pump..we push a button and it circulates the hot water to get hot before you turn it on. These things have cut our water bill by 30%. The pump cost $200 and I installed it myself under the sink.
The actual cost of the water may be underpriced, but all the other freaking charges they put on my bill that have nothing to do with my actual, personal water use, are overpriced.
about 20-25 % of my water bill is actual water use cost. The rest are service charges, storm water charges, sewer charges - stuff I have no ability to reduce by using less water. My local water people have no current plans as to how to reduce those charges for me.
I don't know where you are getting your data, because as a service plumber and plumbing contractor, I was around when the 3.5 gallon flushers were introduced, and I'm calling that about 1980.
It took until the late 1960s to make the complete switch over from 7 gallons to 5.5 gallons in manufacturing.
“can begin as little more than a bucket filled with a layer of a carbon-rich material such as dry leaves, sawdust or newspaper.”
Somehow, I just can’t picture my late father heading for his throne with the Sunday papers under one arm and a bucket full of leaves in the other.
I mean seriously, wouldn’t it be even simpler to just go behind a tree in the back yard?
Venting solutions have changed since then so I was going to retrofit when the tank went out a few years ago. No plumber would install one because we're at 7,600 feet and no manufacturer will stand by an on-demand at this altitude. That was disappointing.
Yep, even though you have to stand there with a plunger and the phone number of the plumber on speed dial.
Our benighted municipality charges for water and then doubles it by charging for waste water sewage. I run a tropical fish store and have complained that I do not discharge nearly as much water as I consume. The response: Doesn’t matter. The sewer charge is merely a way to double the cost of water use. At least they are honest about their deception.
Composting will not necessarily destroy STD’s, prions, cancers, or other human ills.
This woman is suggesting that we put ourselves at risk for various epidemics, for the sake of Mother Gaia.
Sorry Mother, I can’t do that.
I’m on well and septic, so there is no reason for me to conserve water simply to use less.
Married with children was one of the all-time satirical shows. I don’t think it will ever be beaten.
I would tell my customer the simple fact, they need a new toilet.
You got one of those low flow toilets during the period that they were 3.5 gallons, and many of them were lousy, they went through the same process as with the 1.6 gallon flushers (from junk to OK).
At first the manufacturers just used less water with the old designs and bowls, they did that with the early 3.5 gallon water savers and then these 1.6 gallon water savers, but the problems have been worked out now, do some research and you can find great toilets to replace that faulty one of yours.
Personally, I use old 1.6 gallon toilets that I have removed from customer's house because they were weak models (but attractive, one Kohler, one American Standard), and they work fine for me but I do keep a plunger close if they need a bump. If they were an issue, I would go buy a new Toto, or whichever brand is a good one currently.
Any reason those couldn't be retrofitted to handle larger flushes to get rid of their problems?
Ah, I had to look that one up.
http://www.wikihow.com/Read-Architect%27s-Drawings
From this I understand that this was the only modification to your home's original plans. Am I correct?
It is best just to buy a decent toilet.
Look at post 82, he likes his new toilets.
Yes, that was the only thing the county building department didn’t approve of in my blueprints. I used to build houses and I’ve never seen a professional architect’s plans that didn’t have loads of red penned corrections on them. I also had my plans approved in exactly 7 days. I felt pretty good about my first set of drawings. No computers with CAD software either.
Nice job on your house!
Thank you! Thank you very much. I built it for my mother and she has told me often that she loves it. (only I know its flaws lol) I still feel pretty good about it. It was a high point in my life in several ways.
“I am a wealth of useless information.”
I found it interesting:)
Bravo!!!
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