A solar composting toilet in Tasmania<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nIn summary, there are several reasons why the advanced design composting toilets deserve top priority: spreading water shortages, rising energy prices, rising carbon emissions, shrinking phosphate reserves, a growing number of sewage-fed oceanic dead zones, the rising health care costs of sewage-dispersed intestinal diseases, and the rising capital costs of “flush and forget” sewage disposal systems.<\/p>\n
Water Recycling: Making Less Water Do More<\/h2>\n Once a toilet is separated from the water use system, recycling household water becomes a much simpler process. For cities, the most effective single step to raise water productivity is to adopt a comprehensive water treatment\/recycling system, reusing the same water continuously. With this system, which is much simpler if sewage is not included in the waste water, only a small percentage of water is lost to evaporation each time it cycles through. Given the technologies that are available today, it is quite possible to recycle the urban water supply indefinitely, largely removing cities as a claimant on scarce water resources.<\/p>\n
Some places faced with shrinking water supplies and rising water costs are beginning to recycle their water. Singapore, for example, which buys water from Malaysia at a high price, is already recycling water, reducing the amount it imports. Windhoek, capital of Namibia and one of the most arid locations in Africa, recycles waste water for drinking water. In water-stressed California, Orange County invested in a $481-million treatment facility that opened in early 2008 to convert sewage into safe clean water, which is used to replenish the local aquifer. Los Angeles is planning to do the same. For more and more cities, water recycling is becoming a condition of survival.<\/p>\n
Individual industries facing water shortages are also moving away from the use of water to disperse waste. Some companies segregate effluent streams, treating each individually with the appropriate chemicals and membrane filtration, preparing the water for reuse. Peter Gleick, lead author of the biennial report The World\u2019s Water<\/em>, writes: “Some industries, such as paper and pulp, industrial laundries, and metal finishing, are beginning to develop \u2018closed-loop\u2019 systems where all the wastewater is reused internally, with only small amounts of fresh water needed to make up for water incorporated into the product or lost in evaporation.” Industries are moving faster than cities, but the technologies they are developing can also be used in urban water recycling.<\/p>\nAt the household level, water can also be saved by using more water-efficient showerheads, flush toilets, dishwashers, and clothes washers. Some countries are adopting water efficiency standards and labeling for appliances, much as has been done for energy efficiency. When water costs rise, as they inevitably will, investments in composting toilets and more water-efficient household appliances will become increasingly attractive to individual homeowners.<\/p>\n
Two household appliances\u2014toilets and showers\u2014together account for over half of indoor water use. Whereas traditional flush toilets used 6 gallons (or 22.7 liters) per flush, the legal U.S. maximum for new toilets is 1.6 gallons. New toilets with a dual-flush technology use only 1 gallon for a liquid waste flush and 1.6 gallons for a solid waste flush. Shifting from a showerhead flowing at 5 gallons per minute to a 2.5 gallons-per-minute model cuts water use in half. With washing machines, a European horizontal axis design uses 40 percent less water than traditional top-loading models.<\/p>\n
The existing water-based waste disposal economy is not viable. There are too many households, factories, and feedlots to simply try and wash waste away on our crowded planet. To do so is ecologically mindless and outdated\u2014an approach that belongs to a time when there were far fewer people and far less economic activity.<\/p>\n
Adapted from Chapter 6, \u201cDesigning Cities for People\u201d in Lester R. Brown, Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization<\/strong> (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2009), available on-line at www.earth-policy.org\/books\/pb4<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n <\/em><\/p>\nAdditional data and information sources at www.earth-policy.org<\/a><\/em><\/p>\nReady to start using water more efficiently? Check out our current offerings of water saving products<\/a>… from low-flow shower heads<\/a> and faucets<\/a> to composting toilets<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\nImage credit: <\/strong>Rick McCharles at Flickr<\/a> under a Creative Commons license<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Lester R. Brown U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt once noted that “civilized people ought to know how to dispose of the sewage in some other way than putting it into [ … ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":17677,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[696,4679,3566,1906,3535],"yoast_head":"\n
Conserving the Urban Water Supply<\/title>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n