This will probably turn out to be an odd post...This is what our toilet often looks like at the House Famous (minus the toilet paper as this is not actually a picture of our toilet but a google image, our toilets have more provocative colours such as violet or cream). That's right, our toilets often have pee in them! This may seem odd to our guests but, I assure you we have our reasons.
The average North American uses 142 liters of quality drinking water each day.Of this amount 50 per cent is flushed down the toilet. I can't think of a more arrogant manner to flout our affluence than by peeing in half our drinking water.
This is a crazy stat as drinking water is fast becoming the key issue of the 21st century. The United States of America is getting thirstier and beginning to eye the delicious waters of Canada. http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20080424/water_wars_080424/20080424?hub=SciTech
Unsafe drinking water is also the number one killer of children in the world.
http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2005-03/2005-03-17-voa34.cfm?CFID=103336814&CFTOKEN=27025139&jsessionid=6630844b00a466c7ef9073781b6bb4b39107
Those are just 2 of many compelling reasons we've stopped flushing yellow (don't worry, if it's brown, we flush it down) So for thi reason, if you decide to come and visit the house famous, or are thinking of joining our community, you should consider carefully whether you can stomach yellow toilet water. We don't pretend to be solving the world's problems with this policy, in fact, many people have far more effective methods of conserving water by toilet. We know we're actually pretty moderate in this respect. http://www.thesimpleway.org/practical/water.html
That said, we figure if we can cut our flushes by 50-75% we can save about 35L of water per day, per person in our household. It's a humble attempt but one we've stuck to in our short life as a community. It may seem a little gross to the average guest, but hey...
Everybody pees!
4 comments:
Recently my wife and I spent time where we had no running water (because it was winter time and we weren't turning the pumps on due to issues with freezing the pipes). It gave me a strong appreciation for how much water is used in flushing the toilet, as I chopped a hole about two feet wide through 4 inches of ice with an axe, and had to haul a four litre bucket about 200 feet , and then upstairs every time the toilet needed to be flushed. Needless to say, it only got flushed about once or twice a day! It was a good lesson in water usage.
Well. I agree with the idea - but to actually smell - look at that yellow.... we are breeding very close familarity aren't we......
I have learn't through my accident ordeal we can get use to almost anything.
Pee going into our drinking water I can deal with - it is what is in the pee - all these toxins - medicines - chemicals - this is more of a concern.
Dalhouise has it right - just go out and pee on every tree he sees or car tire.........
Got to go - have to go pee!!!!!!!!
Great, just great! Now I'm going to have to flush twice as often to keep our averages up!
I wholeheartedly agree with the pee on a tree or plant method. I have noticed an improvement in the colour of my flower bed too. mostly a guy thing though.
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