Do you think there's a less wasteful way to dispose of our waste?

In new, highly efficient buildings here (Netherlands) rainwater gets collected. This collected rainwater is used to flush, clean enough and is a relative cheap system

When I was smol, grandma would flush the regular toilet with "grey water" left over from doing the dishes in a pail (she would just NOT use the sink lol), or doing the laundry in said pail, and it worked fine, never clogged, never had any issues. I do believe she's still at it to this day.

You guys are really CREATIVE with illustrations. Different ideas in different episodes.

Everytime I flush a vacuum toilet I almost get a heart attack, even if I think I'm mentally prepared for the shock.

My aunt took out all her toilets in the early 2000s, and paid $10,000 for several composting toilets with bidets. I loved them. Someone called the city, who called children services on her after an inspection, and for a year they threatened to take away my cousins until she had at least one flushing toilet in her house, even though she had city water running through her house. She complied, and pissed the city off by putting in a pricey "gray water" system that recycled the water. A few years later her city made it illegal to collect rainwater, and that citizens could only use approved gray water systems. She gave up the gun and just moved to Arizona, where her homestead is being attacked again because of newer zoning laws. Fortunately, she's grandfathered in.

In Hong Kong, mostly we flush our toilet with sea water. The only thing is, we cannot let sea water overflow from the toilet. Or else, we have to change all the floor tiles, even the concrete.

I loved everything about this video-the script, the stop motion, the poop puns

A couple of years ago my daughter and I stayed in a cabin in Lincolnshire England. The toilet had a normal seat, that was all that was normal. Under the seat was a bucket and next to the toilet was a bucket of compost. Each time you used the toilet you covered your excrement with the compost and when the bucket was full emptied it on a new compost heap. No smells and very efficient.

After using a composting toilet in a permaculture community, I can't see any other better (ubiquitous) solution, it just makes so much sense, at least for 95% of places in the world.

Options: • Grey water (from laundry, sink) • Rain water • Sea water (make sure you use the right pipes) • Waterless compost toilet • Use smaller button to flush pee (if your toilet has 2 size options)

I've pondered this issue for 20 years. Water is increasingly precious. To use clean potable drinking water then urinate and deficate into it is a sad waste.

I almost passed this video by because I was aware of the basic premise but I am glad I watched it there was a lot of great new information presented. Keep up the great work.

It seems this video doesn't mention that waste treatment plants actually already collect the solid wastes as biosolids... which are then turned into manure or burned in waste to energy powerplants to generate electricity. A single centralised system serving a city would be much better than tens of thousands of small individual systems in each building, some malfunctioning due to neglect or disrepair. I mean there's a reason why cities switched from cesspits & septic tanks to centralised sewerage systems...

this is so strange! this is EXACTLY the way i thought water worked when i was little(im 71yo now), waaaay before recycling, i thought that what we flushed got sanitized, sent back and reused for EVERYTHING...wow how prophetic was that 😳

With my Joe Jenkins compost toilet system I'm able to handle my household humanure in an odor free, closed loop system that generates pathogen free fertilizer with no electricity or water used for the toilet! Definitely a huge innovation and a worthwhile system for rural, eco conscious, or developing areas 🙂

We should be flushing toilets with gray water like desert cities do. Great job on the delivery!

The bare minimum should involve reusing of grey water from sinks and shower/bath basins. Ideally without high-power pumps. Flush litre amount should be the result of the calculation of the suction and minimum flow dynamics for the toilet bowl and waste water piping in the building or typical of construction techniques for the area. That way toilet flush reservoirs can intelligently know (ideally mechanically - no silicon sensors) whether they need a mains/other top-up prior to facilitating a particular flush type. And of course the system needs to be low-maintenance and maintenance-friendly.

Here in Slovakia, we have so much water, that we flush toilets with drinking (sometimes almost mineral) water...

When available I often use water from air conditioning to flush, also when there's no need to, i flush gently and use a fraction of the water. Here in italy usually we have toilets with two buttons on the flush, one use far less water, if you only pee for example. Until better solutions is at least something

When I lived in southern California in the 70's, we used a brick in each toilet tank, maybe not high tech but it worked! Lower water level in toilet tank first, add your brick, the brick raises the water level for a good flush yet use less water per flush. We also gave away watersaver spa shower massage units for a great strong spa-like shower that saves 33% of the water. Love your uploads! Everyone can help the Earth with just a few adjustments in our everyday lives- it's easy! How about grey/rainwater?!

As someone who works in a treatment plant I can absolutely say that YOU MUST STOP FLUSHING YOUR GARBAGE!! Your garbage is destroying the sewer system, it blocks the pipes and breaks them. It also burns out the motors on the lift station pumps. Also we can't keep up with all of the damage. You are literally tripling the cost to treat your poo by flushing the garbage. Wet wipes are not flushable, they are doing an enormous amount of damage. PLEASE, trash in the bin and poo in the loo. There are two different systems for a reason!!

This has got to be the most quirky informative video I’ve ever seen. It’s beautiful!

Several years ago I replaced all my domestic toilets with dual flush systems that are designed to use less water. I also connected them to a grey water system that collected rainwater. However, the weaker flushing system left stripes on the bowl after a poop which necessitated double and sometimes triple flushing and a good scrub with a toilet brush. Result: Using my “environmentally friendly” toilets has become a cleaning chore to leave them in a fit state for the next person and they use more water. 😡 (It is also less hygienic because the lid is open while the toilet is flushing dispersing aerosols and bacteria int the room.) Fortunately with UK rainfall the grey water system is never in danger of running out.😂

Surprised composting toilets weren't discussed more. I can't wait to have one myself to feed my gardens.

* I heard of a seaside place that uses sea water for flushing. * For men, there are no-flush urinals. It is connected to a drain, but not a water source. A trap that uses vegetable oil blocks the odor. * You can buy lids that have a small sink and faucet. The faucet connects to the fill mechanism inside the tank. When you flush, some of the water flows into and then out of the faucet. The person who flushed can use this to wash hands. A drain allows this water to flow into the tank.

Toilet Systems on cruise ships are a great way to study a way on optimising it on land. Great video and great job! Thank you

My dear grandfather designed and patented a waterless toilet more than three decades ago. He did this to try to provide those in rural areas, and those who don't have access to basic water and sanitation, an 'off the grid' solution. It's a pity that large corporations and government have mostly stood in our way and brushed off such a viable alternative to the water flush. This goal and mission will eventually be my inheritance! Our goal has always been to set up and decentralize production - giving the power to the people. - Zerho Waterless Toilets

Composting toilets have been around for a long time. Why not give them more visibility?

My family's house (multi-family urban in Germany) has been using rainwater for toilets, washing machines, dishwashers and watering the garden eversince it was renovated around 2000. I didn't know that's not the norm

I just discovered your channel recently and so far I haven't found a subpar video! Everything is gooooood! Keep doing what you're doing. I hope YT promote channels like you instead of the obnoxious ones. I started to unsubscribe to creators who endorse fast fashion and consumerism.

Just put a brick in your cistern, or collect shower water or rain and use that instead. We need to make this small changes to have big benefits!

I’m very interested in composting toilets with urine diverters. The potential for personal use or some kind of aggregator service for agricultural use seems significant.

What an awesome production! And a very funny anchor.

What a smart fun way of presenting the subject!

Love how you have done the illustrations and animations

Sike!?!? I don't know why but that really cracked me up. 😂 1:44

I think one solution could be having a non drinking water pipe system in all new houses, fed by municipalities. So you would not waste drinking water to flush the toilet.

What I don't understand is why we don't use the other water that goes down the drain to flush our poop. Water from our showers and laundries could be stored in a tank and used for our toilets.

How does the decentralized treatment mentioned in this video make sure, that germs, antibiotics etc., that are excreted with our poop don't get back to us or family members, for example? - Since Hygiene doesn't stop when the stuff is gone. And a certain percentage of these leftover substances also gets filtered-out in treatment plants (yet not all, of course). And how would vacuum toilets work inside houses, if they were installed there? - Aren't they built to just plop the stuff out into the atmosphere from a plane?

What about composting toilets? Can gray water be collected in a holding tank and used to flush the toilet?

I absolutely the creativity in this video- made me smile as well as more educated about toilets!

If we do move towards decentralised solutions using local recycling or composting, the savings for municipal governments could be enormous! Can't deny the incredible convinience of the flush toilet though which I reckon is what most people would be reluctant to give up.

I love all your DW Planet A videos. Great work guys! Greetings from Monterrey, Mexico.

Watch this on the toilet for more enjoyment about the topic ! Natural gas from waste water is a fun thing to cities.

Gravity toilet + septic tank at the cabin works great. Only uses a little bit of water. That tank fills up approximately 1/6th as fast as the neighbors with regular toilet and a tank that is 50% bigger.

We respect the efforts you take to create this content.

I always try to get the most out of my toilets. I'm a big guy 340, 6 ft 2. The thing I hate is when you get one of these gallon half flushes and they don't even flush what I have to put out. When I was a kid we had toilets that would flush whatever you gave it it was hard to plug them up. Nowadays everybody's so bent on saving water, they forgot about the big guy that has to visit their house once in awhile and then the end up having a pluged toilet. That's when I refer to those toilets as a 15 gallon flush. I've seen toilets that were set up flush more water if necessary. Right now I'm in an apartment that has one of these special water-saving toilets, and I have to flush it 3 times so the toilet doesn't plug up. If I don't do this then I have to get the 5-gallon bucket out. And if you've ever had to do this yes a lot of fun.

I have been thinking about this.. For a long time... Nice work

I'm from Heerenveen, a small town in the Netherlands, we have a half closed system, our waste first goes to a company called Swiss Combi, and when they've taken all the waste from it it goes to the local water purification plant again, and obviously then we drink it again.

Aren’t the sewers of Berlin literally rotting because the residents don’t flush often enough?

Meanwhile living in Sub Saharan Africa and almost everyone has a flush toilet and access to clean water. Pit latrines have been banned in most areas for decades, mostly found in the remotest areas just like in developed countries.

How about investing in large scale centralized systems like water treatment, electricity production power storage, building methods, materials, etc, that can actually achieve the goals we need for humanity to survive, instead of asking us people again to fix every problem individually. (Also, again more production and new consumption). Instead push for your local government to take responsibility and invest in rethinking and rebuild better large civil systems.

Thanks for the video ☺️

I'm glad I found this channel.

If you look at Campers/Motorhomes, they have lots of different approaches to save water. "If its yellow, let it mellow, if its brown, flush it down" you really only need to flush the poop, I've done some work on my motorhome setup using a regular flush toilet. Using pressure, you can reduce the water to less than 1 gallon. And the holding tanks really need the water to keep the poop flowing when you empty them.

This is a great video every way you look at it.

Very interesting episode. Keep up the good work.

I live in a rural area (desert) with a well and septic. I currently haul water from the well to the house as the waterline trenches are not finished. Water to flush is secondhand water, from washing hands & handwashing dishes (the soapy part; rinse dish water goes on plants). I want a permanent plumbing setup, something more sophisticated and easier than my buckets. Why isn't household plumbing designed for better graywater collection?

I once worked at a mission farm. Groups would do community service each day, but one day in the week your group works the farm. Many people had trouble getting passed that they used "hu-manure". Only 1 flushing toilet in each bathroom. The others were sawdust toilets. Pit sawdust in bottom of bucket, cover your solids each use, make a pile. The piles of hu-manure rotate every 4 years, so it's just really good soil and the bad bacteria is gone by the time it is used. Though they still make sure to wash the produce well.

Synchronicity is what is all about, great job DW

Listen, to me the best features of a flush toilet are convenience and it's diminishing effect on smell. Make a toilet that won't be a pain to use and won't smell, and I will be able to adopt it.

I've long wondered what happens with the water being flushed down an ordinary toilet system, exactly where the water goes, what happens with everything being flushed, and some people improperly use toilets, so ...?. I began trying to diminish my flushing several years ago because of not knowing how this system operates and knowing that flushing means use of a good amount of water, while many people on this planet seriously suffer due to lack of water, including locally, regionally, here, in Canada, due to lack of rainfall, like for agri., f.e. We have municipal water treatment, sure, but that's all I know about it, not knowing exactly how this operates.

I've been saving everything for environment, serious in 3R practice from the reduce level, but I'd excuse water usage on flushing. This is the part I'd cheat and stick to conventional flush because getting rid of whole evidences after toilet is so important that we seem to have no other option except that extra water to really make sure it all gets pushed down to every little spots that even the odor quickly gets away. I do still acknowledge the need for different levels of water flush for different form of toilet wastes, speaking of liquid waste should be using less water flushing and not the same big amount of water as the long call ones, and as for that we already see solutions from many toilets with double flush buttons, one is for lesser water flushing and one is more, which till this day I still couldn't tell which one is which as they don't give writing instructions on the buttons so they did not seem effective. For now we'd need to improve on displaying the writing instruction on the buttons that's all and as for using way lesser water than already is, I'd keep that aside for now.

Clever video! I love all those ideas. If only all of our poop looked like Popo’s!

Watched while eating. Loved the unicorn:)

Vacuum toilets suck. Half the poop doesn't go down. For the same reason you need water in sewers, you need it to flush the poop away. I live somewhere with no end of clean fresh water and fertile land - so high water flow flush toilets work fine here and are sustainable. I understand most of the world is parched - so in a very different position than I am here in London, Ontario situated between 3 great lakes and millions of hectares of the best most fertile farm land.

what i like about your videos so far is that when ppl speak they sound like normal humans. not like some politicians or some greedy ppl trying to sell sth or an idea just for their own good. and they dont sound stiff. im a big fan it beeing that way :)

This host is a great storyteller!! Awesome video ❤️

Well done! Such a well done video!

KZfaq recommended this video to me while I was sitting on the toilet!😂

My goal now while renovating my house - MAKE POPO HAPPY...!!!

I live in Namibia, a country greatly affected by droughts. As far as I know our capital, Windoek uses recycled water for tap water. This is for as long as I can remember, and there are people living in Windhoek not having a clue they're drinking poop water and the rest of us just don't care. People would bring water from farms because they didn't want to drink the city water. My generation seems to be used to it and doesn't make a great deal of it.

In Japan, I have seen a smart set up in which the wash basin was above the toilet‘s water tank and the grey water from washing your hands was reused to flush the toilet. Reusing grey water from wash basins and showers could be potentially a good solution as well.

In the uk we have plenty of water. We also have sewers that cope with large amounts of water. That’s how they were designed. We now have silly modern toilets that use ever smaller amounts of water so there is a higher propensity for blockages. It’s nonsense. Same with dishwashers. In the 60’s -80’s, dishwashers used gallons of water and some did the whole job in 30 mins. Now as a result of ‘savings’ it takes 2-3 hours to achieve similar results.

One thing wasn't mentioned here, and it shows how complex the topic is, while in this video only one aspect was looked at. In Germany people, especially kids, were advertised to safe water since about the late 80's. And as the kids grow older with that mind set, less water was 'wasted'. But the consumption of cosmetics and detergents went up. Energy saving washing machines added to it, as the only way the industry could build significally more energy efficient washing machines was to reduce the water used - less water which needs to be heated = less enegy. The result was, and even years and years before the drought came: Many many wastewater treatment plants couldn't work right, concentration especially of detergents and cosmetics and all the chemical stuff was too high, thus they had to pump in fresh water. This means, effectively not much water has been saved, if at all! It's just the people who **think** they've done something for the environment. It's to silence one's conscience, and not knowing the truth is a bliss. Saving water must come together with saving detergents and stuff (and/or using more easily biodegradable ones, with much less fragrance especially regarding laundry). Or the whole water treating has to be revolutionised (which makes the idea of revolutionising our toilets a laughable small one in comparison). And those who were born some decade before the millenium may remember how bad the water quality in rivers actually was, before water treatment got significally improved and standards were set for both, industry and individuals. To change this system and make a tiny mistake might have catastrophic consequences. I'm all for composting stuff that can be composted, *but* a major environmental skandal and catastrophy in South Germany showed what it can cause if done wrong: Waste of paper recycling which couldn't be used anymore in the recycling process was given to farmers as 'compost' to put on their fields. The recycling companies saved money for the disposal and the farmers got fertiliser without too much nitrogen to improve soil quality, for free. Win/win. It's just old paper, what could go wrong, right? Wrong. Some years ago a water supplier ringed alarm, as quite high amounts of PFCs were found, substances which at that times wasn't usually looked for when the water was tested, as it wasn't mandatory. The levels were so high, that in the communities in that area people were asked to not prepare food with tab water, to not bath or fill pools with it where longer skin contact is given and better not to wash smaller children with that water. But it was only a peak of an iceberg. It was found that the PFCs got into the groundwater via fields of farmers that were treated with this paper compost. But it did not end there. Soon it were hundreds of hectares of farmland, which was affected and should have been decontaminated. But it still not ended, as further investigation showed there were farmers across the state which also took advantage of this 'free compost'. And it still not ended, as then PFCs were found in other states of Germany, too, with more and more farmland contaminated, which was impossible to decontaminate at that scale! Bur back to the region where the iceberg peaked first, in the Upper Rhine Valley, were a giant groundwater body was contaminated with immense loads of PFCs, a groundwater body which moved. Towards the biggest city of the area with about 350.000 citizens. And further, as it can be described as a giant invisible river under the river Rhine. Which flows all the way to the north, and through the most populated state of Germany. Yet still, this major environmental catastrophy was hardly mentioned in news. And to just think of removing poo and pee without even informing oneself what kind of wastewater treatment plant the local community has is just as bad. If it's a biological treatment plant with a complex set of micro organisms to treat the water it again might not work as designed if you remove certain parts from the equation. To just say 'We are wasting so much water in our toilets, we need to stop this' is way too narrow minded, stop looking at certain aspects allone and start looking at complexes as a whole, everything else is unscientific eyewash.

I think the sewer system is still a the least worst idea, but the water used to power it needs to come from grey sources. My washing machine pumps out into a storage tank for the cistern, but the delivery system is a bucket so I don't think it'll catch on. I thought about adding an electric pump but then you're back to using resources; it would make the system invisible and convenient though.

There’s a considerable element of ‘poetic justice’ in converting waste back into consumable resources - sort of the reverse of picking up the puppy poop and putting it in the empty dog food bag

You have really touched on a very sensitive subject which nobody wants to talk. But, if not today, in near future the world will be forced to think about it. Thanks for taking up such an important issue that concerns the health of our planet & environment!

as a person with OCD, toilet business is not something i like to talk about, as it can jumpstart a minor mental breakdown in the wrong case. even through this, i agree the systems in place for toilets are wasteful. i might not be able to go as far as using my excrement to feed plantgrowth, thanks to my mental issues, but i would totally have an outhouse hut that gets moved to a different hole every year or so, as the old waste hole is covered up with soil and plants grown on top (compostable TP, of course.)

Less wasteful ways: In Taos, New Mexico there is an architect, Michael Reynolds, that builds homes called Earthships. In his homes water is used at least three times before it goes to a leach field. The first time the water is used in the kitchen, Laundry, shower or bathroom sinks. The water is then directed to an enclosed planter bed where it grows food, is filtered and collected. Then it will travel back to the bathroom when someone flushed the toilet. The water finally heads out to the septic leach field. Where it could grow plants for beneficial insects and such. In Australia they use worms to process the poop in what looks similar to a regular septic tank system. The water released is used to irrigate plants. There is a channel on youtube that has several videos explaining it: A&A Worm Farm Waste Systems . What about neighborhood composting systems that create biogas for cooking, that could be sent back to the houses in the neighborhood. There is such a plant in India and they have a video on here just can't find it at the moment. The big problem of dealing with sewage is not the pee and poop (as in the video, we have uses for those) but with all the mixing chemicals that people put down the drain.

...that water gets cleaned and reused tho. How is it wasteful? No water is lost, it's forever recycled on a city wide level. Why on earth would you want to limit it to a house recycling system? Many places don't have issues with flooding or drought... I'm confused on what the problem is.

Collect rain water (in water barrels connected to downpipes), or "grey" water from certain washing. Refill your toilet cistern with this water by using a recycled (and cleaned) 5 litre plastic container (sunflower oil, and mineral water bottles in our case) during it's refill phase (during & immediately after the toilet is flushed). To do this simply take off the lid of the cistern. 5 litre containers of water weigh 5kgs and this isn't too heavy & cumbersome. Also, an easy way to collect grey water (used water that would've simply gone down the drain) is to use a bucket (a toddler bath from IKEA, in our case) when washing hair, or after our small child takes a bath. Do not use water that's too dirty, and definitely never anything with food waste in it. We also use rain water to fill our regular front-loading washing machine. Simply pour rainwater in via the detergent drawer during the initial machine filling phase (wait for the machine to start filling to know when is the right time). Allow the final rinse phase to be done using regular mains water. Take shorter showers, and TURN OFF the shower while you soap/shampoo yourselves. We've been doing this since last winter and now average UNDER 100 LITRES of water (household) usage per day. The savings are significant for both the environment and my wallet.

If you mix poo and pee and leave it in a ceptic tank, it becomes a stinky mess. However, if you have a garden that is big enough (500 square meters) and you could spare the time, you could separate the poo from the pee and fertilize your garden. Put the poo on the compost heap and cover it with soil. It will quickly decay without smell. Next, take the pee and mix it with rain water and water your garden with it.

I live on a small island in the middle of a marine sanctuary where we have no sewerage system, and instead use septic systems. I would MUCH prefer to install a composting toilet, however our Council laws state that, aside from these islands where it makes most sense to use composting toilets, the rest of the Council area can freely choose them, but they are disallowed here. I have no idea how this makes sense at all.

Why don't we just use the waste-water from showers and bath- and kitchen-sinks for toilets? And collect raining-water for the garden and collect water from clothes dryer for dish-washing?

This is pretty interesting style of writing. Good work!

Good work

Back in the 80s, a school friend's father was already quite eco conscious and he had build himself a tank in his apartment where he collected sink/shower/laundry water to be then used to flush the toilet. He probably saved 50% of water usage, and that was already 40 years ago. No clue why this hasn't become a more common thing yet.

I'm being monitored to well. This came up while I was on the toilet

Pretty nice presentation 👌 👍 I like the fun way it was made thanks guys & gals! But one thing was conspicuously absent in the various methods presented..no water toilets are not the only other type in India & many other countries in Asia a different model exists quite predominantly where water is still used to flush but is manual where there is a small pipe & a bucket next to the latrine with which to flush...one of the things that we used to do growing up was to collect the water from washing clothes in a bucket & use that for flushing thereby conserving water

I respect the restraint shown.

From the van life community has come the idea of a recirculating shower run on 10 gals of water . You have endless hot Water but the same10 gals . A series of Filters and a UV se

Great work team! 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽

Such a well made video!!!

We come to that conclusion five years ago and since then we collected rain water, that rain water is the input for washing machine, the washing machine output is then used for the toilet.

I can brush my teeth with my pee. I learn something new on this channel every time I watch your videos. Thanks.

great video!

We use gray water from the washing machine etc. and rain water for flushing the toilet. When there's enough rain water we supplement with clean water :) This year there were only about 15 days where we had to use clean water but that's because the summer in Germany wasn't as hot this year. Still think it's a pretty good way to do it for now. We're currently looking into composting toilets because I've seen a lot of people use them in tinx houses 🤔

Never thought that climate change would also mean having to rethink how we go to toilets.