The title statement certainly looks like it’s false at first glance, doesn’t it? In fact, the makers of eco toilets are constantly telling us that their new improved toilets save lots of water. But there are in fact three reasons why the statement is really true.
1) When the low flush toilet first became popular in 1994, it was due to a largely misguided law that required their use. At this stage the technology had not been sufficiently developed, and it turned out that quite often, solid waste was not flushed out on the first attempt. At times it took several flushes. Since those early days, however, numerous design changes have been made. So this reason is actually no longer applicable, unless you’re talking about an older toilet.
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2) Another sort of trivial reason has to do with water recycling. In most areas of the country, waste water is treated, and dumped into a stream, which eventually empties into the sea. But in some arid regions, such as central California, the treated waste water isn’t thrown out – it’s reused. So regardless of how much water is used in flushing, it’s all reused, so a low flush toilet does not save any water at all!
3) Now we come to the primary reason. In most cases, utilizing a low flush toilet really does save water. But the amount that it saves per person each year, when weighed against the total amount consumed per person each year, is quite trivial.
So when you read a statement like, “using a no flush toilet would save the average person 30 gallons of water every day”, it’s terribly misleading. It may appear to be a significant amount of water. But it does not say how much water the average person uses ALTOGETHER every day – including indirect uses.
As an example of an indirect use, the Water Education Foundation discovered that it takes about 30 gallons of water to produce a quarter-ounce serving of corn. See? 30 gallons per person per day is not much after all!
So please, I don’t want to hear about eco toilets saving the planet by conserving our precious water. They do indeed save water, but it’s only a “drop in the bucket” when compared with other water usage.
Learn more about a lot of the positive aspects of low flush toilet and how they function by going to the author’s web site at eco toilets.
