How can toilets help to alleviate drought in major cities?
Cities all around the world are running out of water.
The majority of US citizens never have to worry about access to clean, running water. Most of us tend to never think about if we have enough water to drink or to shower with. However, within the past two years, water scarcity has become more and more center stage to the millions of people living in high drought locations.
The alarming decline of available fresh water has impacted the globe and has begun to raise conversations, especially in Mexico's highly populated capital of Mexico City. The residents of Mexico City, roughly 20 million people, are starting to feel the affects of water scarcity and beginning to take small steps to preserve the little they have left.
In the United States, major cities such as El Paso, Texas and Phoenix, Arizona as well as an international mecca, Cape Town, Africa, are all beginning to brainstorm how to not only save the water supply they have left, but how to increase water security by building the infrastructure capable of storing and cleaning water and implementing regulations to help conserve water regularly. It's estimated that by year 2025, nearly half of the worlds population could by facing water scarcity, meaning that every day life will be affected greatly. Fresh water is essential for growing crops, maintaining live stock, and carrying out important daily tasks such as cooking and bathing.
How much water is used daily in a typical household?
Most people use water every day to wash, drink, and cook with. While using water to carry out these everyday tasks, the amount of water being used and it's source, is almost never considered. The average American family uses more than 300 gallons of water per day at home. When that water usage is broken down, toilets take up the largest percentage at using 24% of the daily water usage, with the shower (20%) and sink (19%) following right behind. Even if you are trying to conserve water, humans need to use water, in some way or another, to survive. So that leads us to study where we may be taking water for granted and how we can reduce our overall daily water usage. One easy thing every household can begin with is checking for leaks, as leaks consist of 12% of our daily water usage.
It can be argued that water is in a constant cycle of re-use and recycling, however, present climate changes, damaged infrastructures, and population growth put stress on the once adequate amount of water many cities have stored and the many lakes that have been dammed. New ways of building communities, and new ways of caring for the worlds fresh water supply, a mere 3% of Earths total water, are being developed and implemented today. The fact that toilets use up the most water in a household makes it a good place to start taking action.
Save water and cut off the water supply to toilets completely.
Toilets have virtually remained the same for the past 200 years or so and have undergone cosmetic upgrades as the fashions of interior design have changed over time. If a toilet was manufactured before 1992, it uses between 3.5-7 gallons of water per flush. The 3.5-7 gallons of water that is used to flush a toilet is "clean", as in, it could have been used for drinking or cooking water if filtered properly. The current federal regulation is 1.6 gallons per flush, thus reducing the amount of water used significantly. However, less than half of the world's toilets even come close to meeting that 1.6 per flush benchmark.
The best way to reduce the daily water usage in households and communities is to completely negate the use of water for the transportation of waste. Currently used most commonly in off-grid settings, a dry flush toilet uses no water to "flush". The term "composting toilet" may be familiar to those who have ventured down the water scarcity path of living in a remote area or in a high drought environment, such as a desert. In general a composting toilet uses no water to flush and instead stores the waste in a sealed container with other organic matter such as pine shavings or paper scraps until it can be transported to a designated outdoor space to further breakdown and be used as organic fertilizer.
The Solaris Toilet offers a fresh new take on the dry "flush" experience and is working to bring this technology to the fore front of developing countries, disaster relief efforts, and urban developments. Over ten years ago, the Solaris Toilet came into existence to provide families in Baha, Mexico a toilet they could install and use in the desert without tapping into their scarce fresh water supply. This style of toilet can be used in locations with zero access to water in a sanitary and efficient manner.
Small changes lead to big results.
Checking for leaks, switching to waterless toilets, and improving water storing systems for communities worldwide can lead to a massive increase in the amount of fresh water available for many years to come. Everyday people can make the biggest change by implementing small changes to the way they use water at home. Teaching young adults how to treat and re-use water is more important than ever, as they will soon be the ones at the front of the water scarcity battle.