I hate low flow toilets! in Off Topic

ID:18285
 
Aug 31 2006, 8:00 pm
Keywords: flow, low, toilet
Warning rant!
I hate these 2.5 gallon toilets or w/e the hell they are. They are annoying as hell, every time I take a god damn crap I have to get out the plunger and do more work. Thankfully I have an older one in my house still that's a 5 gallon and everytime I flush that amazingly enough all the crap goes in one shot. I don't even have to flush twice! So why the hell am I using a toilet that I have to flush twice that uses the same ammount of water? Also since when do we need to conserve water...you know the most abudunt natural resource on the planet! What are we going to do somehow magicaly run out? Yes I know the water table is screwed up but that's what salt water refeiners are for! They produce salt and fresh water! Amazing no?
#1 Aug 31 2006, 8:03 pm
A good majority of the water that is available on the earth is sea water. It's unsuitable for that kind of use, and the water filtration plants are very expensive to maintain.
#2 Aug 31 2006, 8:28 pm
Only 2% of earths water is fresh water, and a large percentage of that is in arctic glaciers.

Yes, it is a possibility that we will run out of fresh water. The rest of the water has fish wastes and whatnot in it.

But, if you want to use that kind've water, be my guest.
#3 Aug 31 2006, 8:37 pm
Yes and I will also pretend that it doesn't rain. And that fresh water doesn't come back.
#4 Aug 31 2006, 8:44 pm
Fresh water really is running out, and if I'm correct, a few cities already have or are losing their freshwater supplies because they're sucking them dry.

Try googling it.
#5 Aug 31 2006, 9:20 pm
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/ 20021115-9999_2m15nosalt.html
"The board of directors, representing 23 water districts, unanimously approved the outline of a partnership with Poseidon Resources to build a $270 million desalination plant on the coast in Carlsbad. The facility, next to the Encina Power Station, would produce up to 50 million gallons of drinking water a day, enough for 100,000 households."
After doing a bit of math that's about 2,700 dollars per house hold(to build the thing). Let say it cost them 100 million(I could never see something like that costing that much) per year afterwords that's...1,000 per house. 3,700 dollar per house. This is plenty of water for them daily. Mind you that the average person probably uses about 70 gallons of water per day. I really don't see what we are worring about here...I am having a rather diffcult time finding anything that talks about the expense of desalination plant. If someone could link me to one I be quite happy.
#6 Sep 1 2006, 4:47 am
$1,000 per house per year is pretty expensive. Plus there are non-monetary costs to be taken into account, like energy usage (and corresponding effect on global warming).

In Australia we have serious water shortages. There are water restrictions in place that forbid excessive watering and car-washing and suchlike. If they hadn't been put in place, our dams would now be empty and we would have to truck water in and/or build additional pipelines from distant dams, at considerable expense. We're too far from the coast to build a desalination plant, and it's widely believed that doing so is uneconomical even for coastal Australian cities.

I think the best solution to the problem you mention is a dual-flush system, which is very standard around here. So you can save water by using the half-flush button, or if you think you need it you can use the whole flush button.
#7 Sep 1 2006, 5:01 am
That sounds much more reasonbale than these low flowing toilets. I suppose, I'm not taking this issue as seroius as I should. But I understand more so where you are coming from. I just have a problem with jumping right to the concolusoin, like exterme enviormentalist do that it's human's are at fault for every freaking enviormental problem. I honstly didn't think it was that severy in any major part of the world. I also never took into the account the cost of piping, I can see how it can start becoming costly. I feel kind of foolish now, I suppose I was a little ignorant on the subject. (I knew it was a problem, just didn't think it was that big of a one.)
#8 Sep 20 2006, 7:18 pm
Do any of you know they take salt water and make it fresh?
#9 Sep 21 2006, 12:28 am
Sure, but it takes a lot of effort (in terms of energy and money expended) to do so. Much better to conserve the water that we do have.