[ Go to other articles ]
The main environmental impacts of our daily ablutions concern heating water up and flushing water away. The chemicals with which we lather ourselves or slosh around the bathroom also have an impact, but they are probably not as heinous as you might fear.
For general comments on bathroom lotions and potions, please see the Cosmetics & Body Care section.
The more serious bathroom capers, such as composting toilets, are discussed briefly at the end of this section and more thoroughly in Fixtures & Fittings in the DIY & Construction section.
Water
In the toilet area a lot of water is wasted when flushing, so put a ‘Hippo’, ‘Save-a-flush’ or simply a brick in the cistern to reduce the volume of water used per flush. The first two cost a couple of quid and fit snugly in almost any toilet, whereas the brick can be a little less forgiving. The Hippo will save around 5000 litres of water a year (I don’t even want to think about the nitty-gritty of the assumptions used to get that figure), which could give more than a 5% saving on your water bills.
Dual-flush toilets are a good idea, but it is probably best not to fit A dual-flush system or cistern to an old toilet. The old toilets are designed to use lots of water and often can’t cope with using less. If in doubt, try putting a hippo or brick in first and seeing if this leaves things floating around the pan!
One of the most ridiculous bathroom crimes is running the tap whilst cleaning one’s teeth. This is literally pouring money down the drain, so don’t do it: it is quite possible to do the whole procedure in half a cup of water. That may be a bit frugal, I’ll admit, but it does show what is actually necessary.
Baths use lots of water, showers use a lot less. Extremely obvious and dull, but true none-the-less; unless you have a power shower, that is, as they use loads of water. A good normal shower uses upwards of 15 litres of water a minute, which can be reduced to around 8 litres with a low-flow shower head. These force the water through extra small holes, giving a pretty vibrant shower despite using less water. The most extreme heads only use 4 litres per minute, but this can be too slow to trigger larger combi boilers to actually heat the water. Chilly!
When you do have a bath, make sure that you really enjoy it as an eco-luxury.
Bath and shower water (
‘grey water’) is good for using on the garden once you have finished with it. The low concentration of detergents, salts and general filth (usually) means it won’t cause problems, especially if you use the more eco-friendly bath products. There are many ways of capturing grey water for reuse, but it is generally not a good idea to store it for too long as it can get smelly. See
Fixtures & Fittings in the
DIY & Construction section or
Water Capture in the
Renewable Energy & Resources section for more detail.
Chemicals
There is a vast amount of conflicting information out there about the health and environmental effects of toiletries. More often than not it seems to depend on who paid for the research and what products they are trying to sell. Although it is definitely true that some products contain quite toxic substances, such as phthalates and parabens, the relevance of the quantities used and their effects are open to debate. However, there is now no place on earth that hasn’t been contaminated with industrial chemicals and, as far as can be guessed, not a single animal on the planet that hasn’t ingested them. Pretty scary if these chemicals turn out to be damaging after all.
So, although the topic is tortuously complex, it seems to me to be a good idea to err on the side of caution. There are now hundreds of excellent products that contain no potentially nasty chemicals, so let’s use them. There are plenty to choose from in the Ecoboom Shop and many more available on the high street.
Bleach is a bit of a problem. It reacts on contact with organic matter, destroying both the organics and itself in the process. Once in the sewer, there is so much organic gloop around that any excess bleach disappears rapidly. However, the chemicals it forms when it breaks down can be toxic and robust, meaning that it leads to environmental pollution anyway. There is also the problem of manufacturing it: most standard bleach is chlorine based and the chlorine industry is not one of the world’s most eco-friendly.
Other anti-bacterial agents such as triclosan are just as nasty. These can hang around a long time and get into the food chain. The whole toilet freshening, water colouring, clean-whilst-you-flush genre is probably best avoided.
Anyway, most people worry far too much about keeping everything ‘hygienically clean’. Most of the time a rub round with a cloth and a bit of eco-friendly cleaner is more than enough. Remember that urine is actually quite a good disinfectant. Sometimes something a bit more brutal is needed, but then the eco-bleaches are fine for that, or try going au naturelle with just salt, soda crystals or vinegar (see Cleaning for more information). Lemon is also excellent, as testified in the Forum.
And another thing…
Sewage - there is a lot of it about. If you are on the mains sewer, you are contributing and I can’t image you will want to stop anytime soon. The main problem, apparently, is mixing urine with the rest. That takes most of the energy to deal with and makes the final ‘product’ fairly unusable. One idea that could help is to use a loo that separates urine and faeces, so the urine is stored in a tank and the faeces sent sailing down the sewer. The urine could then be collected every so often and used in the chemical industry for its wonderful cocktail of nasty chemicals. Apparently this is all quite easy to do and would go a long way to making our lifestyles sustainable.
For those not on a sewer, the only options are to hoard it in an underground pool for periodic removal or treat it in some way. The disadvantage of the former option was graphically demonstrated to me when the inlet pipe to a friend’s cesspit got blocked, forcing him to climb into the thing and grope around in the gloop to free the blockage (if you are reading this whilst eating, apologies). So, how about another way?
There are many options, some of which need regulatory consent. There are seep tanks, reed beds, composting toilets, dry urinals, straw bale urinals, bucket toilets (urgh) and stuff that actually gets quite weird. This is a huge subject in itself, but if you are interested a good place to start is the Centre for Alternative Technology.
What to do
- Turn the tap off when not in use.
- If you do not have a twin flush loo, put a Hippo in the cistern.
- Take a shower and think about fitting a low-flow shower head.
- Use eco-friendly toiletries and cleaning products (cheaper and generally more effective than DIY methods such as soda, salt and vinegar, but maybe not as rewarding).
- Use less of everything.
[ Back to top ]
Subcategory articles and related topics