[Greenbuilding] 15,000 gallons to flush two shoeboxes

[Reuben Deumling]

And for a similar, book length, perspective on this issue, see 'The Toilet
Papers' by Sim Van der Ryn.

On Mon, Mar 10, 2008 at 5:23 PM, Benjamin Pratt <prattb at uwstout.edu> wrote:

> 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."
>