Need of toilets It's time we began to appreciate the toilet for the amazing role it plays in our lives and our bathrooms and we began to research what we buy when choosing the commode. There are now water conserving bowls and flushing technologies that surpass more wasteful products from years back.

The toilet, no matter how much we deny or ignore it, is a prominent part of our lives and our homes. We tuck it away in well decorated rest rooms or cover it in ornate toilet seats and accessories, but its purpose in our lives is undeniable and should be appreciated, not concealed. And the toilet is the appliance that uses the most water in your home, consuming up to 30% of all indoor household water for flushing demands.

As toilet users we have matured enough to approach the topic of toilets without a potty mouth. If you are planning a bathroom remodeling project you should put as much consideration into picking out the right commode for your bathroom as you put into choosing your vanity or sink.

Aesthetically, there is a limit to how different toilets look. But then toilets don't serve an aesthetic purpose. It is more important to consider their technical aspects. On average we each flush the toilet about 6 times a day. US toilets manufactured and used before 1994 used varying amounts of water to flush, 5 gallons or more per go. In 1994 it was mandated that all newly installed toilets had to adhere to a strict standard of 1.6 gallons per flush. Despite the switchover many older houses are still using their older toilets, which of course adds to the amount of water being wasted while flushing.

The incredible amount of water wasted can be addressed in many areas of our lives, an important one of which is our toilet habits. If you have a toilet that was installed prior to 1994 that you do not want to replace, consider the do-it-yourself solution of putting a volume of something in the tank to permit less water to enter. Use a water filled bottle or container that will fit in the toilet tank without interfering with the equipment inside. Avoid using brick because this can cause the tank to crack and cause plumbing problems as it starts to disintegrate. Make sure there is still enough water entering the tank as overdoing it can make users double flush, defeating the point of the operation all together.

If, on the other hand, you are looking to replace that old toilet with something newer and more efficient you may be surprised by the variety presented to you. When the 1.6 gallons/flush toilets were first required by the government, toilet manufacturers were caught off guard. They simply had not prepared toilets that could meet this standard and flush away excreta in a satisfactory manner. Now, some years down the line, enough research and innovative design has been achieved that toilet manufacturers are proudly presenting their products to the public.

The most common toilet technologies used today are the gravity toilet, pressure assisted toilet and the flushometer toilet. The gravity toilet is the most common and also tends to be the most inexpensive while the flushometer toilet is mostly used for commercial purposes.

Sticking to a residential theme, these are the main differences between the gravity and pressure assisted toilets: In a gravity toilet water sits in a tank until flushed, when it is released through a flapper valve and propelled by gravity to wash down the standing water, carrying along anything in the bowl. In a pressure assisted toilet, the water released when flushing occurs does not exit the tank under the force of gravity, rather the water is pushed out with the help of a pressurized tank inside the actual toilet tank, washing down the contents of the bowl under pressure, with more force and velocity, as well as noise. Both systems work well (although as with anything there are different reviews by brand) and have improved on the performance of the toilet in general since the initial complaints about the first 1.6 gallons per flush toilets.

or Need of toilets

Only a hundred years or so ago, people didn't have either one. There were no microwave ovens or toasters. There were no light bulbs. You couldn't just flip a switch or push a button to make things happen. For thousands and thousands of years, whenever people wanted heat they had to make a fire. Whenever people wanted light, they had to burn a wax candle or an oil lamp or just wait for the sun to rise.

And for thousands and thousands or years, there were no sinks with hot and cold running water or flush toilets in houses. You couldn't just turn on a faucet or hold down a handle to make water move. Whenever people needed water, they had to get a wooden bucket or a heavy clay jar and walk to a river or a spring or a well and then carry the water back home.

And whenever people needed to use the toiletthey couldn't. There was no such thing as a toilet. Instead, they had to dig a hole or find a tree. Some people walked to the river and relieved themselves there. At night, people didn't want to go outside in the dark, so they used a bucket or a pot then emptied it in the morning. And where did they empty it? They dug a hole or found a tree or took it to the river.

People who traveled a lot just dug a small hole whenever they needed one. But people who lived in one place and had a house usually dug a deep hole. They put a seat over it, and sometimes even built a little house around it, to keep the rain off and give people privacy. The little house was called the outhouse.

For thousands and thousands of years, people have been digging holes. And for thousands and thousands of years, there was no such thing as toilet paper. Ancient Romans used scraps of wool or sponges on a stick to clean themselves. In Hawaii , people used fibers from coconut shells. Rich people in France used lace. On farms, people used corncobs and handfuls of hay. In the desert, people used sand. In the summer, people used leaves. In the winter, people used moss and snow.

A few hundred years ago, people learned how to make paper cheaply. Newspapers and almanacs became very popular, and not just for reading. The Sears Roebuck catalog full of large, lightweight pages hung in a place of honor in many an outhouse. Finally, in 1877, toilet paper on a roll with easy tear-off sheets was invented.

About a hundred and fifty years ago, people started putting water pipes in their cities and building sewage treatment plants to make the toilet water clean again.

More and more people started having bathrooms with running water in their houses. This was amazing! They could take a hot bath, just by turning on a faucet. They didn't have to heat water on the stove and carry it in buckets to the tub, and then empty the tub with buckets when they were done.They could flush the toilet. They didn't have to dig holes or empty chamber pots every day and scrub them clean.They could use toilet paper from a roll. They didn't have to use corncobs or coconut fibers or rip pages out of an old book.

They could wash their hands in a sink, and not just with cold water. There was hot water, too!

This may not sound so amazing to you. Most of us have grown up living in houses that have bathrooms. We think flushable toilets and soft toilet paper and bathtubs and sinks with clean water where we can wash our hands, and even take a drink, are normal. We think everyone has them.

But everyone doesn't.

Two and a half billion people don't have access to a toilet, not even the port-a-potty kind. That's about one-third of the people on the planet. One-third of us are still digging a hole or finding a tree or going to the river. Or, using plastic bags. One-third of us do not have toilet paper, and are still using leaves or sand or snow.

Of course, for thousands and thousands of years, that's what everyone did. Not having a toilet is not new.

But something is new: the number of peopletwo and a half billion people. For all those thousands and thousands of years, there weren't very many people. In a country village, there's plenty of room to dig more holes. When your tribe is the only group who uses the river for twenty miles, the river can clean itself. There's plenty of time for everything to decompose back into water and earth. In a great forest, there are plenty of trees. Being used as a bathroom once in a while is not going to hurt too many trees too much.

But in a big city, there are more people than there are trees. There's no room for each person to dig holes, maybe not even one. The riverbank is crowded and there's no privacy, not even outhouses. But in a big city where people do not have toilets, the river is where the running water can be found. The river becomes the bathroom.

And that is not healthy.

After all, human waste is what our bodies are getting rid of. It's not healthy to put it back into our bodies. We all know we should wash our hands after we go to the bathroom. We all know that toilet water isn't safe to drink. That water has germs in it. That's what sewage treatment doesclean the water before we use it again.

But the two and a half billion people who live without toilets don't have a way to clean the water. Human waste goes into the water, and that's the only water they have. It's the only water they have to wash their hands. It's the only water they have to cook with. And it's the only water they have to drink.

People get sick from that water. People die from that water. Diseases like diarrhea, dysentery and cholera kill almost two million children every year. Five thousand children die, every single day, because people don't have toilets.

Since 2001, the World Toilet Organization has been working to change that. They want every person to have access to a toilet. They want every person to have water to drink and wash with that isn't full of germs. They want life to be better for everyone.

They've even created World Toilet Day. On November 19th, the World Toilet Organization works to help people all over the world learn how important toilets are.

So the next time you use a bathroom, take a moment to admire the soft toilet paper, the hot and cold running water in the sink and the flushable toilet. Take a moment to think about the two and a half billion people on the planet who don't have toilet paper or sinks or toilets of any kind.