Green messages abound these days. Some are worth listening to. Many are merely noise and distraction that don’t amount to much. Admittedly, it’s hard to know what’s legit and what is little more than eco-marketing ploy. And of the stuff that’s environmentally legit, it’s hard to distinguish the high-quality green products from those that suffer from really good intentions but a lack of corresponding business skill and manufacturing acumen.
So when a dazzling High Efficiency Toilet (HET) comes along that truly delivers on its promise to curtail water use and still ensure that everything – yes everything – goes down the toilet in one flush, it’s worth taking note. Before I left Brooklyn earlier this summer and moved to the mountains surrounding Asheville, North Carolina, I installed a Niagara Ecologic Toilet (about $350) in my apartment that utilizes only 1.28 gallons of water per flush. That’s down from 1.6 gallons for standard toilets purchased today (and about 2.8 gallons for toilets purchased over fifteen years ago). Doesn’t sound like much of a difference? Well, if that toilet were flushed, say, 10 times a day, an HET toilet would save 3.2 gallons of water per day, or about 1150 gallons of water over the course of a year. That’s a lot of water for just one toilet to save.
So what’s the rub? Toilets are expensive to buy and every expensive to install. I’m amazed at how much my plumber charged me. In fact, one of the best paying green jobs I can think of would be as a green plumber specializing in the installation of water efficient products. Trust me, you would make bank while working to protect the planet. And this is also why I still think that installing a low-flow showerhead makes much more financial and environmental sense as an initial step when greening your home.
On the flip side, the good news about toilets is that at ToiletRebate.com, you can quickly locate rebates on High Efficiency Toilets and other water-efficient products available in your area. Many state and local governments and utilities now offer incentives to residents to upgrade to water-efficient products in order to reduce the burden on our aging water infrastructure and our increasingly threatened fresh water supply.
So if you’re thinking about switching to a High Efficiency Toilet, the Niagara Ecologic Toilet is an excellent way to go. Other qualifying toilet models can be found on the EPA’s WaterSense website. The WaterSense program is modeled on the government’s EnergyStar program and is intended to help consumer quickly identify water-efficient products.
