Great Green Idea: Green Products: Don't Just Flush It All Away - Get a Green Toilet and Help the Planet

Don't Just Flush It All Away - Get a Green Toilet and Help the Planet

As concern over environmental degradation continues to increase in the public mind, many are taking matters into their own hands. Determined to do their part to reduce their impact on the planet, many are making valiant efforts to "go green". One area that is often overlooked in our efforts to go green is the bathroom, and this is unfortunate, because the bathroom is responsible for a large portion of our water usage, and water waste.

Older toilets are water guzzlers, and when used by the average family (around three people), this can amount to over 25 gallons of water per day - just to flush the toilet! This may not seem like much, but added up over the course of a year, and you begin to see how this seemingly small "problem" is actually a pretty significant source of water waste. With water being the most precious resource on our planet, responsible for life, we cannot use it with abandon and without concern for the future.

Due to governmental regulations all new toilets produced must be low flow toilets. There are a couple of different types of toilets and not all low flow toilets are created equal. Some simply work better than others and it is important to do your research before investing in a green toilet to ensure that you aren't, well, flushing your money down the toilet.

Current regulations require that new toilets can only use 1.6 gallons of water per flush. This is a significant reduction of older toilets which use as much as 3.5 gallons per flush. This was a vital policy implemented by the federal government to help reduce water waste, particularly with certain areas of the country already facing shortages.

Replacing your toilet with a low flow model is one of the simplest things you can do to reduce your water consumption and this will pay for itself in the reduced water bills you receive in just a couple of years.

There are two major types of low flow toilets, the differences being in the way they "flush" or remove the waste from your toilet bowl and into the sewer system. There are gravity-flush toilets and pressure-assist toilets. Depending on the age of your house and the quality of your piping, one of these options is likely to be better suited to your needs than the other. These options take into account the amount of use and the type of piping your home has, to optimize the efficiency the toilet will have in your home.

Problems with older low flow toilet models was the inability of the toilet to, um, actually flush the waste down the system. This meant that these toilets often required multiple flushing, which defeated the purpose of the lesser use of water. You don't save much water flushing a 1.6 gallon per flush toilet three times over a standard 3.5 gallon per flush one, flushed once. Luckily, our modern low flush toilets, with advancements in the flushing technology no longer have this problem.

While most of us prefer not to think too much about our bathroom habits, it helps to look at the "equipment" we use to make it all possible. Toilets, while not a topic most want to discuss in depth, are just part of the set of problems you must tackle in order to be more environmentally responsible. With modern, advanced low flow toilets, you could reduce the amount of water used in the flushing of your toilet by over half. This not only saves valuable water, but it will reduce your water bills as well!