Saving drinking water reserves?

Question

If everyone in the UK could, once a day, have a wee without flushing the loo, we could save over 200,000, 000 litres of water per day, or over 70,000,000,000 (seventy BILLION) litres a year. Multiply by four to get the rough total for the usa.

What do you think?

Answer 1

What about the medical bill.  Water is treated and reused.  So it is better to flush after wee than to pay medical bill after suffering

Answer 2

Like you have a water shortage in the UK right now.

Queen Victoria made the laws that required England to become the first country in the world to have flush toilets to combat disease and now you want to go back to outhouses.

Also that wee and the loo water go through a recycling plant were the nutrients are removed and used as fertilizer and the purified water (to a legal degree) is returned to the river to be recycled by GOD.

What would be a better saving of resources would be for you to dig a hole in your yard or closest park and do your business there and wipe with leaves.

Answer 3

I admire the idea and think it has some merits, but I'm not sure this is the best approach overall in promoting water conservation at home.

Couple of interesting statistics:  toilets account for 26% of a households annual water usage; leaks consume nearly 14% of a homes yearly water usage!

The first thing you can do to reduce your water consumption is to make sure your system is leak free.  This is fairly easy to do and often doesn't cost a great deal.

Another trick (many homes in Canada have done this) is to fill a two liter plastic bottle with gravel and water.  Then put this in your toilet tank -- this basically (via displacement) reduces the volume of water used with each flush.

The second link below offers 49 tips on how to best save water at home.  There are some really cool ideas!  It might be best to go for these saving options before resorting to a "flush free" plan.

Answer 4

Thats dirty. You should flush it every time. Is there a water shortage? If you flush you toilet does the water leave the system? NO. It just saves water companies doing what they are paid to do, and CLEAN the water

Answer 5

In principle your strategy is a good one yes.  From other answers, the effluent from a waste water treatment plant is not pure, it is cleaned to a level which will not pollute the river (in most cases).  There are plenty of examples though where water used once upstream is treated and discharged to a river and taken out again further downstream and used again.  Before any water is fed to supply it is treated to set standards and there is a lot of bolox in some answers.

But to get back to your question, the answer lies in the title of your question.  We are actually using drinking quality water for all uses including washing the car and flushing the toilets.  In theory we would be much better off to have one drinking water quality supply and another supply for toilets and such like.  In practice this would not work because someone somewhere would connect wrong pipe to wrong pipe and to double all supply pipes to houses would be hugely expensive in the first place.  I have two supplies to my house.  One from the public drinking water network and one from a shared well.  We use untreated well water for all garden purposes and the outside loo, shower etc.  You do have an option to save drinking water by installing an individual system to catch rainwater and pipe this to toilets and some other uses.  See link.  All wastewater still goes to sewer for treatment and I am not sure how they will charge for wastewater if you use rainwater which is not metered in.  You only really save money if your supply is metered but you do save some resources and you dont have to compromise on hygiene.  Water is actually a renewable resource.  The treatment and distribution consumes energy and chemicals so saving water is actually all about saving the resources of treatment rather than water itself.

Good question though to get some responses.

Answer 6

are you short on rain? if so then do this..

Answer 7

No, our sewege is cleaned out by sewage refinement units.  I think that they pump this back into our mians water.

Believe me, I wouldn't try extracting water from urine incase you catch something.

Answer 8

Interesting point and I personally think it should be put to action!!!!! :D

Answer 9

Water Conservations, Oceans, Etc:

http://www.coolpeoplecare.org/article/20... (Click on "Inch of rain" for picture info)

http://www.pcrf.org/tensimple.html

http://www.watersavingtips.org/

http://www.wateruseitwisely.com/ (Click on "100 Ways to Save Water" for great info)

http://www.raingardens.org/docs/rainbarr...

I have lots of other info that I think you will find quite helpful and enlightening:

http://360.yahoo.com/blorm_multaeeneea_l... (For tons of inspirational info)

http://ecowellness.multiply.com/ (For all the environmental info)

Let us all strive for a greener/brighter future by helping to create a solid foundation for future generations to build upon, so we can hand them a beautiful world, filled with never ending awe and wonders!!

Where peoples differences and uniqueness are accepted, where we all live as one, helping one another so that we can all play our own mysteriously beautiful melodies in the never ending, awe inspiring, song of life :-)

I truly have faith in humanity and believe that someday our lives and the world in which we live will truly be transformed for the better.

Answer 10

In my house we don't always flush after we've had a wee. We have a small jug which we fill with water which we throw down the toilet bowl. As one questioner said before, the toilet does not smell. In this country it is rare that we have a cistern that has an economical flush, so the thought of wasting litres of water for one small pee upsets me. Yes we pay for our water, but we all know that we cannot continue to consume at the rate that we do. Also I would like to add, that turning off the tap when you are brushing your teeth is also a good step as a trmendous amount of water is wasted this way.

Answer 11

At my home we don't flush after we have had a wee, the toliet only gets flushed about 3 times a day, slightly more if we need a number 2! There are 2 off us that are toliet trained though!

I'm very conservative on saving water.

Oh & for all those who snigger at this I'd like to point out that the toliet does not stink which I am quite suprised at!

Answer 12

yep. I only flush every two times (at least I do this in the week when I am on my own!)

Answer 13

And what happens with the now double concentration sewage? Think about it.

I'm all for conserving water, but turning into something that takes more water to clean up is pointless.

And to the "leave the taps on 24 hours a day" answer... You also pay for what goes down the drain. Study your bills ;-)

Below: No, the perfectly clean water that leaves a sewage works is discharged back into waterways (rivers and streams) in the UK. The water is completely clean and safe but people don't like the idea of it going straight back into a reservoir before being treated and put back into the supply.

Answer 14

I think with what I pay in water rates a month, I should leave my tap on 24 hrs a day to get my money's worth !! :)

Answer 15

Putting your wee on your compost heap would save even more water and rot down your compost quicker!

We dont flush every time we use the toilet.

We use our bath water to flush the loo and water the garden.

And our washing up water goes on the garden too.

We are also fortunate enough to have a local spring and well, so often get our drinking water from there.

Its amazing how little water we need. When i have lived without water (in my caravan, with no mains water), there has been more than enough rainwater most of the year to meet mine and my childrens needs for body washing, clothes washing, washing up and cooking.  We always collected our drinking water from the well or spring and sometimes in hot spells i have had to collect from there for our washing needs. And all our grey water goes on the plants because we dont buy toxic chemicals to wash anything with.

I think this was a very interesting question.