[Greenbuilding] 15,000 gallons to flush two shoeboxes

[Benjamin Pratt]

Speaking of saving water....
Here's an obscure article I quoted in a speech at "the world toilet
summit" in 2001. I really had nothing to say before preparing the
speech, but, partly because i quoted this, I got international press.
(So I'm know for remembering obscure articles, i guess).

"Cyber-Surfing Toward A Brown Rice Millennium." Outside Magazine.
April 1994 (page 58)
"And so as an experiment," Baldwin says, finally winding down, "I
saved a whole year worth of [fecal matter].  I [defecated] on a piece
of cardboard, so the sun could dry it.  At the end of the year, what
was left could easily fit into a couple of shoe boxes and was full of
concentrated minerals that would be very expensive to produce
commercially.  But to get rid of what's in those two boxes," he
concludes, pausing for the punch line, "we  flush 15,000 gallons of
purified water a year down the toilet."