Thursday, 22 October 2009


You are probably wonder why I have posted a picture of my toilet on the blog, well the topic for That Little Bit Greener this week is water. I think the Japanese have a great idea with their toilets and would like to share with you! For starters it has a two way flush, big one for number two's and a quick little flush for when you have had a tinkle. Now, when you flush the toilet, the water in the tank washes your business away and the fresh water comes through a tap at the top, which means you can wash your hands and the water you use doesn't get wasted, it goes into the tank for the next flush - BRILLIANT. It also gets rid of the need of those ridiculous teenie weenie sinks that you have to have in new restrooms.

This loo came as standard with the house and has a bidet and heated seat, I can live without it but hubby likes it. We do, however only turn it on when we want to use it, I know many people leave it on 24/7.

Another great thing is the way to take a bath, I wrote posts on this a while back parts one and two. Basically, the bath water is fairly clean when the family is done with it so we use a special pump that pumps the water into the top loading washing machine, so the bath water is used for the first two cycles, fresh water is used for the rinse. The washing machine also weighs how much is in the load and uses the appropriate amount of water for the load. Clever stuff.
I think my biggest waste of water is the way that I wash up, I tend to have the tap running so I am going to try and change that.
On a web group I belong to someone posted a link to 100 water saving tips, as I read through it, I would say about 75% wasn't relevant to our lifestyle, a lot was to save water when maintaining your pool and watering the lawn, neither of which we have. I think the best tip was to put food colour in your toilet tank and see if any of it ends up in the bowl (without flushing) if so, you have a leak.
For those in Japan, we used to have one of those heated water pots, the type you leave on all day. I wanted to get rid of it because I don't drink many hot drinks through the day, maybe two, so it didn't make sense to use it and if you try and use it like a kettle, well, it takes forever to boil. So, I bugged hubby until he decided to 'research' (can't buy anything without research) anyway, he discovered that the water pots use as much electricity as a standard fridge! Needless to say, he was down the shops in a flash and I now have a lovely Tefal kettle.
So, over to you, what are your water saving tips? Pop over to TLBG to see what everyone else does.


  1. Wow, I am very impressed with the ingenuity of the toilet!

  2. Here in Canada I was so disappointed with the way we conserve water. Most of canadian and (US) have 13L toilet tank !!! I know it seems so ridiculous.!!! North American washing machines use lots of water as well and they don't clean as well as the ones we are used to in Europe. Although some of your readers from the States might be offended, it is true that in Europe they are so ahead of us for energy efficient and water consumption appliances available and they have been for the last 25 years at a minimum cost.

    When we bought our first house in Canada we made sure than any appliances were energy efficient (and by far the appliances were just coming out in the market in 2002 in Canada, and were very expensive). Most of our appliances have delay start/water and electricity efficient. In British Columbia where I live we don't have electricity meters or water meters so people don't really realise how much water they consume per duelling. It will change eventually but coming from France where we have different time zone for electricity per day and from UK where we used to pay the water for what we used and what we wasted.. Canada is a paradise... What strucks me the most is few people are still unaware about energy efficiency products as well as water consumption.... But I am sure in the near future it will change and I hope that it will... your post is interesting. We have dual flushing too (4l and 6l). I truly believe if goverments will give incentive for people to use their water and energy efficiently the world would be a better place. I am wondering sometimes what the world would be in 20 or 30 years if water runs out.... I have also noticed in our travels in south asia that the toilets there are most efficient ..... I went to a Japanese restaurant in NY (MORIMOTO) and the toilets were very fancy and japanese was a real treat....

  3. I just thought of something else, we get charged for water in and water out, so we pay for the amount of water we use but we also have to pay for the amount that gets flushed/drained, I am not sure if this is a unique thing to Japan.

  4. I always wish to have a Japanese toilet seat, the washing function, the heated seat etc. Now, it even goes green. Great staff.

  5. In Uk, when I was living in Kent we used to be charged twice too, in and out (basically you pay for the wastewater treatment), in Canada the water bill is added to our town taxes so we don't really know what we pay (in BC most of the water comes from reservoir ( water collected from rainfall and snow) so in summer we get shortage of water too ;(

  6. I didn't realise that the pot uses so much electricity!


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