Put it away after using the restroom...

Insanely busy at work/home right now, so the posts have been few and far between. Here's a quicky for ya...

As someone that used to live in an 750 sf house --yes, house-- I can appreciate the size of a bathroom. Every single square inch counted as we bumped morning elbows with one another, sometimes reaching for the faucet while the other was spitting. Well, two of these would have made a world of difference.

But think bigger.


Airplanes, trains, metro stops...

That's Ecofantastic!!! Day 1...

This whole week I will be honoring ecofantastic items...

It's time.

I've grown so overwhelmed with green-washing that I'm now coining a word:

Ecofantastic: A product/method/ideology so absurdly priced/developed/formulated that its irrationality transcends any purposeful usage and/or implementation into the present-day green movement, to the point of almost becoming fantasy.

That's my word. Mine.

It was not inspired by Nader or Webster's, but by this paragraph:

Hitting a consumer wave at the right time has made many people rich, but, unfortunately, the green market has claimed many victims in the past. Too many well meaning products end up in what US green marketing guru Jacquelyn Ottman calls the "Green Graveyard", making the fatal assumption that Green credentials can overcome mediocre performance, poor design and, frankly, soppy branding.

This whole week I will be honoring those ecofantastic items (pre and post mortem) in an attempt to give them the recognition they deserve, long before their first generation, virgin, organic, sustainable, unbleached, recycled bits are buried in the over-hyped green graveyard.

So today let's wipe with it, before it's wiped off the face of the earth:

Ecofantastic: Renova Green Toilet Paper

This brightly coloured green toilet paper will add an instant designer touch to your bathroom...it's made from 100% bio-degradable materials so you can be sure your doing your bit for the environment.

$17.70 for *cough* 3 rolls

#2 of a kind....

Travel anywhere in the Pacific and you'd be surprised at the European influence --not just in a royal Monarchial sense-- but in the bathrooms.

What?

You heard me right...yes, the bathrooms.

Why low-flush/dual flush toilets have never caught on stateside, I'll never know. Travel anywhere east of Lisbon or west of Papeete and you're bound to find a two-flusher underneath your bum (in addition to, ahem, less scrupulous versions of what some might consider to be a toilet). For those of you that have never experienced them before, the two flusher provides two different levels of flushing power: Level #1 using half the water at code yellow, and level #2 opening up the locks on the dam. Pretty logical, eh?

But for some reason or another, Americans require a 30 gallon SHWOOSHing sound to insure that our poo is whisked away on a 50 mph hour log ride to the water washing plant far, far away from the sterile bubble of home. Think Homer Simpson shouting "USA, USA" in the episode Bart vs. Australia.

Actually, if you're an American you might even consider this conversation a bit too gauche for your virgin ears? My apologies, but as you'll see from a quick googling toilets and restrooms are the talk of the world (I want this one). You haven't lived till you've tried your first Asian squatter.



Back to the conversation at hand...

The crude, frail design of dual-flush toilets has advanced quite a bit over the last decade, so maybe there's a chance we'll see them soon. Up until recently, they've never been able to meet the needs of American sturdiness. Solid construction and sleeker designs will hopefully provide some form of a competitive edge in the US market. Until that time, I guess I'll just keep posting about other crazy designs (some of which might just work!) in loo [sic] of a dual flush post.

One crazy design that caught my attention was the Royal Flush Water Saver.

Whether you're looking to save the environment or your just a fan of the TV show Oz, you'll no doubt appreciate this grey water recycling system. We've posted about grey systems before, but the system takes it to a whole new (see: prison-like) level.

While I think the design is oddly genuine, I still have my reservations about American idiosyncrasies and the toilet/cleanliness combo (see: aforementioned 500 mph log ride). It's obvious between this system and the Aqus system that there is a viable way to recirculate used water back into reservoir tank, but I think the Aqus system might be in the lead, design-wise. I'm just not sure many Americans, obvious as it may be that the hand-washing water isn't coming FROM the toilet, might still think/feel that that the toilet H2O is the source.

Additionally, there are many misconceptions as to the flight patterns of airborne particulate swirling through the bathroom post-flush (FYI: according to Jaime and Adam, that myth was busted). As a result, many might assume that the sink would be infested with germs and bacteria after the first flush, much less the many flushes thereafter.


Still, I can't help but find myself a teensy bit excited at the thought of competitive development in this field (yes, I need to get out more often). It's simple: competitive market interest produces perfected design.

From the "Why didn't I think of that" files....

Today I'll be borrowing an item from Josh Spear, who borrowed said item from Apartment Therapy.

People normally think of grey water collections systems in large-scale proportions, concentrating mainly on landscape irrigation in industrial or mixed use settings. This, however, is an ingenious little invention from Vivavi: The AQUS Toilet System.

The AQUS system collects used water from your sink and collects it to use as flush-water for your toilet. According to the website, the system can reduce water usage in a 2-person home by 5,000 gallons per year. Josh Spear also brought up a good point that the system is non-invasive enough to be easily installed in a rental. Much easier than asking your landlord for solar voltaics on your roof!