Experts call for end of flushing toilets on World Toilet Day

Experts call for end of flushing toilets on World Toilet Day

www.news.com.au

AS the world celebrates World Toilet Day today, sanitation experts have called for the end of the flushing dunny to save water and provide fertilizer for crops.

Leading health advocates have called for the use of "dry" toilets which separate urine from faeces and remove the need to flush.

Speaking at the recent World Toilet Summit in Macau, World Toilet Organisation founder Jack Sims said the concept of the flushing toilet was unsustainable.

Mr Sims said a culture where people flushed their loos but disregarded the thousands of litres of wasted drinking water each year was one of sanitation's greatest challenges.

"This 'flush and forget' attitude creates a new problem which we have to revisit," he said.

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Did anyone know that yesterday was World Toilet Day? First I've ever heard of it.



On a more serious note, I find this a bit silly. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for conservation, but do we really need to eliminate flushing?

I suppose if it can be done it might as well be though. It would save on water bills.



www.news.com.au
(visit the link for the full news article)

Haha

They are welcome to give it a try over at their homes and send me an e-mail on how it works out for their families.

I won't flush my q-tips

that's as far as I go

ha i was listening to it on the au national new yesterday afternoon. apparently its just a weird thing for us yanks ever one else was acting like it was regular news.

I smell a new position looming in the Obama cabinet.

Toilet Czar. Let's search through the crap of the past to dig up the right person for the job.

Dry toilets sounds intersting. I'm still trying not to think about how sewage is recycled and how some amounts of toxins and medications are still present. I don't use either to drink mostly and buy distilled water for now.(?) I don't trust my landlord's current well much either. Especially since he also has a septic field.

Not flushing for one day when it's a public toilet sounds nasty.

flush with pride

they got them at some of our rest stops on the freeway now to, there rather nifty if you ask me.

I'm all for it provided that it is not preceded by National Taco-n-Beer Night, and it is followed by something along the lines of International Air Freshener Day and as long as it doesn't fall on 'Save A Tree From The Toilet Paper Factory Day.

I mean . . . GEEZ LOUISE . . . we need a day for everything. That's the international argument for Waaaaaaay Too Much Free Time On My Hands Day

Who thinks up this stuff anyway?

I live in a desert and we have to pay a lot for our water.

My city has a completely isolated, separate water system for public land irrigation and they use reclaimed water to keep the city parks and other public landscaping green. This is a great solution but required the construction of a whole new municipal plumbing infrastructure to implement.

I think dry toilets are actually a great idea if they can make them sanitary and odorless.

reply to post by nyk537


There's a "world toilet day"? Who thinks this stuff up?

Maybe we could have it around Ramadan when people are fasting anyway?

Ever heard the saying: If it's yellow, let it mellow; if it's brown, flush it down?

I'll opt out. Seems rather unsanitary to me. kthxbai.

Conditions in Australia, thanks to global warming, (or long-term climate change, as our government calls it,) mean that we are living with severe water shortages and must seriously consider ways of saving water.

By the end of last summer, the average water level in Melbourne's water catchments was only 30%. However the reservoirs "always" fill up again during winter and spring.

But this year summer has started and we still have only a 30% water-level in our catchments.

Once it gets down to 18%, all that comes out is mud.

So, folks that have water to flush bucketfuls away to wash away every turd you produce, enjoy pushing that button. It's not like throwing the water in our direction is going to help us any.

But remember, every time you flush a turd into the sea, you have taken fertilizing substances from the fields and, instead of replacing them, have polluted the ocean with them. There are too many people on Earth now to get away with doing that and not harm the environment. It's time we saw this planet for the precious space-ship it is and started taking care of it.

There are millions of people who would kill to drink the water that we use to flush our feces with. It is kind of crazy that we use perfectly clean and drinkable water for such a purpose. I think that everyone moving to a gray water system would really be a good move.