Written by Peg Fong
Sunday, 23 November 2008
We don’t often think about how we could make our toilets more efficient. Maybe that’s because we don’t think about our toilets so much in general -= one flush and the problem is gone until the next time we sit and ponder. For some reason, in North America, we haven't caught on yet to what consumers in water-starved Asia and Australia have known for decades. Why should the water we flush with be as pristine as the water we drink out of the tap?
The people at Caroma have come up with an idea that makes a lot of sense. It has a system that routes the sink water used while washing hands into the toilet tank ready for the next flush. The Profile Smart Dual Flush Toilet has a built in sink behind the cistern which is useful for when space is at a premium, although it may take some adjusting to get used to straddling the seat in order to wash your hands. Apart from the filling mechanism, the toilet operates normally. The water from the sink comes directly from the utilities water supply, completely separating the two functions.
The product was even noted last month as one of the top ten items in Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Products of 2008. Caroma, which has its headquarters in Brisbane, Australia, says it has tested to make sure that soapy water in the tank will have no adverse impact on the toilet components and has calculated water usage savings of 70 per cent per household by combining the sink and toilet.
The system is already available in Australia and the company anticipates selling in North America starting in 2009.
Via Inventor Spot and Popular Mechanics
On a personal note, I once went to this rather fancy hotel in Ireland and soon discovered that their toilet systems used recycled toilet water. It was brownish-yellowish. So this sounds like a reasonable alternative to me.
2 comments:
Might make cleaning easier??
If you don’t like the idea of having a sink above the toilet, you can also opt for a “regular” Caroma Dual Flush toilet. Caromas toilets look sleek, really work and are affordable. They offer a patented dual flush technology consisting of a 0.8 Gal flush for liquid waste and a 1.6 Gal flush for solids. Caroma, an Australian company set the standard by giving the world its first successful two button dual flush system in the nineteen eighties and has since perfected the technology. Also, with a full 3.5? trapway, these toilets virtually never clog. All of Caroma’s toilets are on the list of WaterSense labeled HET’s http://www.epa.gov/watersense/pp/find_het.htm and also qualify for LEED points. Please go to http://www.caromausa.com for more detailed information or visit http://www.ecotransitions.com/howto.asp to see why they actually work better than any other US toilet. Best regards, Andrea Paulinelli, owner ecoTransitions Inc.
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