Green Toilets

Usually, green and toilet are not a good combination of words. In fact, it's enough to make you turn up your nose, but you might want to think twice before you do. The green I'm talking about is added to your bottom line. No, not that bottom line, your wallet. (We are talking about toilets after all.) The green is also for giving Mother Earth a kind turn by using an HET, or high efficiency toilet.

Why is it important? Your toilet is a water glutton, these things guzzle anywhere from 3.5 to 5 gallons with every flush. These old-fashioned guzzlers account for approximately 30% of water usage in this country every year. That's crazy to spend that much of our water resources on waste. That water, if it could be used as drinking water, would translate to 584,000 glasses of water. That's not even the most shocking; it's that the number translates to those many glasses of water per person.

Ready for another number? The average person in this country uses about 100 gallons of water every day. It's rampant consumerism not of product, but just water. It's consumerism of a natural resource that is essential to all life-functions on earth. Water isn't something that if we deplete our resources, that we can find another resource to replace it. Not to mention that it doesn't just belong to us, here in the United States. It belongs to the world, it belongs to everyone. There are people that don't have enough drinking water, let alone water for that staggering amount of waste processing. The wonderful thing about it though, this is a case where you can see the difference that one person, or one family can make.

You can change that with an HET, or high efficiency toilet, which are classified under green plumbing. These upgraded models use at the most, 1.3 gallons of water. There are some that use even less, with variable settings and you choose how much water you want to use. By replacing your old, obsolete toilet with an HET, your family could help conserve about 4,000 gallons per year. Imagine what 4,000 gallons could do as drinking water?

There are two types of HET's the single flush and the duall flush toilet. The single flush is big in the states and the dual flush toilets are big in Europe and other countries for their water saving properties. They have two buttons, one for “Number 1" and another for “Number 2". The “Number 1" button uses less water than the “Number 2"button, which when you think about it makes perfect sense.

Dual flush toilets are just about the same price point as a good quality standard single flush toilet, so why not make the switch? Now to the bottom line, the inside of your wallet and value that you can see in your budget. A high efficiency toilet can save you approximately $100 a year, about $2000 over the lifetime of the unit. Want more? Well, who doesn't, but you've got it. Some municipalities offer incentives to home owners who purchase high efficiency toilets. They can range anywhere from $25 to $175.

With all of these advantages for your wallet and more importantly the environment, now is the perfect time to upgrade your old, obsolete, water-guzzling toilet to a high efficiency toilet.