Go With The Flow

Man was given dominion over the earth, to cultivate and take care of it. We have come to a point in our society where we are finally beginning to take seriously our responsibility of caring for this beautiful planet we live on. We have begun to recycle like never before. If you are like our household, we have a plastic recycling bin for more things than not. The amount of garbage I place out on the curb every week is nothing in comparison to the amount I place in my recycling bins. Just last summer the city of Ottawa introduced composting; now I have a great big green container in my garage that gobbles up all that we don’t consume!

One of the main resources that man is responsible for on this wonderful plant is water, and since humans are made up of 2/3 water, this is a very important resource! When we moved to Ottawa, receiving a monthly water tax bill was a novel experience. Each month we were presented with a record of our water usage and we began to pay attention. We began to look for ways to cut down on the amount of water we used in order to save money, as well as to help the environment.

After doing a bit of research I found the biggest water consuming item in my home was my TOILET, I found out a few facts about this water guzzler:

• toilets use 30% of household indoor water;
• the average person flushes the toilet 5 – 6 times a day;
• by the end of one persons life they will have flushed their toilet approximately 140,000 times;
• if your toilet is a 13L per flush toilet you are flushing away 24, 226L of water a year.

Yikes, since there are four of us in my family we are flushing over 96,900L of water away a year! Just to get a visual on this I found out that an 18-wheeler water tanker holds 8,000 gallons of water!

I thought it time to do another small step forward in assuming my responsibility of taking care of this planet, as well as saving myself some money. What if I replaced my 13L per flush toilet with a 6L per flush or low flow toilet? I would be flushing away 10,977L instead of the 24,226L. This is over 50% less water usage.

This is still a tremendous amount of water, but at least I am doing a small part in conserving this precious resource. If you are planning a bathroom renovation, go with a low flow toilet. If you love your bathroom, then join me in simply upgrading your toilet. I haven’t shared the best part with you yet…I’m saving about $100.00 a year from being flushed down the drain.