Having an eco friendly bathroom design can seem easier said than done, and there are some new ideas about how to make a bathroom green and environmentally sound which seem far too complex to ever be applied in our own homes, without bringing in a expert group on contractors.
But there really are some very simple methods for making our bathrooms less hazardous and generally better for the environment, without breaking the bank or bringing in professionals. My first suggestion is to fill up a two litre bottle with fresh water and place it (carefully) in your toilets cistern; alternatively two builder’s bricks will work just as well. By placing one of these heavy items in your cistern, the displacement of water will reduce each flush and reduce your daily water usage by approximately twenty five litres.
One, far less commonly used way to be moiré environmentally friendly in your bathroom is to make your own cleaning products. This ensures that not only will the cleaning products which you wash down your plug holes be completely natural and eco friendly, but it will also save you a bundle on expensive cleaning products.
For example when cleaning bathtubs and showers you can use lemon juice and vinegar mixed, or alternatively baking soda (or bicarbonate of soda) and water. When cleaning a toilet this great little mix is ideal; Baking soda, washing soda, distilled vinegar and liquid soap. Finally when trying to un-clog a drain, “drain un-blocker” really is an unpleasant substance for you and the environment, try using half a cup of baking soda and three to four cups of boiling hot water to get rid of those nasty blockages.
There are other NONE permanent ways to keep your bathroom eco friendly, like buying recycled toilet paper which a lot of stores now offer as standard. There are even eco friendly towels to research which are made using plants which have not been sprayed with pesticides and are coloured using eco friendly dyes.
Remember that simply having poor quality toilets, basins and bath tubs can have a negative impact on how much water you waste every day. When searching for cheap bathroom suites you should be sure to find a set which is both high quality and within your budget, this can reduce the quantity of wasted water by a significant amount.
There are some taps which offer an eco click cartridge function which is designed to inform you with a loud click when the tap’s flow is on half and full flow. This reminds you to use less water and often stops people from simply turning the tap on full blast.
Of course there is one, well known tried and tested method for reducing the amount of water used in the bathroom by a huge amount. The old saying “if it’s yellow let it mellow” says it all, because of the relatively odourless nature of urine, flushing it away is often considered (at least by eco activists) be a serious waste of water. Try leaving your flushes for other, smellier waste disposal tasks and let the yellow stuff mellow. It’s estimated that this can save up to one hundred litres a week, on wasted water! Remember that if it’s tried and tested there’s usually a reason for why it works.
This article was written by DIY and décor enthusiast John Pauline. John blogs on all manner of home improvement and renovation projects as well as the very real issues surrounding waste water and environmentally unsound bathrooms. For more articles you can follow John @johnvitality.