The statement in the title certainly looks like it’s not true at first glance, doesn’t it? After all, the makers of eco toilets are always telling us that their new improved toilets save lots of water. But there are three reasons why the statement is really true.

1) When the low flush toilet first became common in 1994, it was due to a largely ill-informed law that mandated their installation. At that time the technology wasn’t sufficiently developed, and it turned out that quite frequently, fecal matter was not flushed out in a single try. It sometimes took several flushes. Since that time, however, numerous changes have taken place. So this reason is actually no longer valid, unless you’re speaking of an older toilet.

2) Another sort of trivial reason deals with water recycling. In many areas of the country, liquid waste is treated, and released into a river, which eventually empties into the ocean. But in certain arid regions, such as central California, the treated waste water is not thrown out - it’s reused. So no matter how much water is used in flushing, it’s all used again, so a low flush toilet does not save any water at all!

3) Now we come to the most important reason. In most cases, making use of a low flush toilet really does save water. But the amount that it saves per person each year, when weighed against the total amount consumed per person each year, is really trivial.

So when you read a statement like, “making use of a no flush toilet would save the average person 30 gallons of water every day”, it’s terribly inaccurate. It sounds like a significant amount of water. But it does not say how much water the average person uses ALTOGETHER every day - including indirect uses.

As an example of an indirect use, the Water Education Foundation discovered that it takes about 30 gallons of water to grow a quarter-ounce serving of corn. See? 30 gallons per person each day is not much after all!

So please, I don’t want to hear any more about eco toilets saving the planet by conserving our precious water. They do indeed save water, but it’s only a “drop in the bucket” when compared with other water usage.

Learn more about a lot of the positive aspects of low flush toilet and how they work by going to the author’s web site at eco toilets.