What is this stuff made from? I hope they think of the fish, that's all.
Raw sewage probably isn’t that great for fish either.
New, slippery toilet coating provides cleaner flushing, saves water
51–60 of 156 posts
Re: New, slippery toilet coating provides cleaner flushing, saves water
#52Hi Everyone! Birgitt here from spotLESS Materials -- we are commercializing this technology and some of the authors of the Nature Sustainability paper are part of our team. I'll try answering some of the questions I'm seeing. Would love to hear your feedback! Check out our products at: https://www.spotlessmaterials.com/shop Check out the full research article here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-019-0421-0#ci…
If you clean the toilet with soap and a brush will it remove either the hairs or lubricant?
Edit: and bleach?
Re: New, slippery toilet coating provides cleaner flushing, saves water
#53> The researchers also predict the coating could last for about 500 flushes in a conventional toilet before a reapplication of the lubricant layer is needed. It's a neat idea - especially the fact the bowl remains white, unlike a coating of PTFE or similar. I wonder if it's an idea they can develop further into a permanent coating?
...which is strange, since PTFE is naturally white. I think we've become used to seeing it on silver and grey frying pans. But that said, what's wrong with a dark-colored toilet?
It would get really dirty before you realized it. With a white toilet, it's really obvious when it needs to be cleaned.
Re: New, slippery toilet coating provides cleaner flushing, saves water
#54@birgitt: Instead of a labor intensive process of spraying and paper or cloth, could you not include the lubricant in a separate reservoir and apply a bit with each flush, avoiding the need for a manual process? Or perhaps have an automatic cycle where the bowl drains, the lubricant is applied, and then water is supplied to refill the bowl after a period of time has elapsed (if necessary)? It seems manual application…
Or just float a thin layer on top of the water that will encapsulate ...ahem...the capsule.
Re: New, slippery toilet coating provides cleaner flushing, saves water
#55Why don't we use grey water to flush toilets? It can use water either from the bathroom sink or shower.
Japan has this... a common design is to have the bathroom sink drain directly into the toilet's water reservoir, so the grey water is used for the next flush. No changes to plumbing needed, since it's all built into the fixtures.
Admittedly, there is a bit of a psychological hurdle to washing your hands in the toilet, even though the water is isolated and perfectly clean. (This could be solved through clever plumbing, to separate the two fixtures.)
Example: https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/9rabuk/t...
Re: New, slippery toilet coating provides cleaner flushing, saves water
#56Unpopular opinion warning! Getting people to save water is one of the simplest things in the world! Water is the cheapest material that people have access to. It is so cheap it has been devalued to the extreme. Fill a backyard pool? That'll be less than $100... Raise the price a little bit, all of a sudden people will use less water, they won't even notice any effect and have the same quality of life. Framing a scien…
It should be tiered, which it is but not to the degree that it sound. But really the problem is businesses and especially farmers growing non-essential crops, especially in California. The drought we experienced over the last several years was mainly exacerbated by farmers who were growing non-essential but expensive crops like almonds. I would rather the almond farmers go bankrupt than have them spend 1 gallon per a…
Almonds are a red herring where California crops are concerned.
Around half of California's agricultural water use goes to alfalfa, a fodder crop which may be grown anywhere.
Israel uses subsurface drip irrigation to grow almonds, which is more than ten times as efficient as California's flood irrigation system.
The problem is not inherent to the crop; it is political, and downstream (pun intended) of California's approach to water rights.
Re: New, slippery toilet coating provides cleaner flushing, saves water
#57Hi Everyone! Birgitt here from spotLESS Materials -- we are commercializing this technology and some of the authors of the Nature Sustainability paper are part of our team. I'll try answering some of the questions I'm seeing. Would love to hear your feedback! Check out our products at: https://www.spotlessmaterials.com/shop Check out the full research article here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-019-0421-0#ci…
> 3. Regarding the environmental friendliness of our coatings: Our product is based on silicone. It has been shown in the scientific literature that silicone can be decomposed naturally in soil within 4-7 days. It breaks down in silica, water, and carbon dioxide.
"Based on silicone" does not mean "degrades like silicone." It also doesn't mean your coating will behave like the silicone "in the scientific literature." If I toss a silicone spoon in the ocean, it won't be gone in a week. You can make plastic out of wood. That doesn't make it biodegradable. There are different kinds of silicone. Some degrade quickly, some don't. Some is toxic as it degrades. It can accumulate in fish like plastic, etc.
Without knowing how the coating wears off (in chunks when toilet is cleaned, etc), it's hard to compare. Also, if it's not actually silicone, we shouldn't be pretending it acts like it is.
Have any independent environmental assessment been done? What happens when you drink it? What happens when you feed it to fish?
Re: New, slippery toilet coating provides cleaner flushing, saves water
#58Why don't we use grey water to flush toilets? It can use water either from the bathroom sink or shower.
Or like my parents, use a well's water (not potable) for their toilets. That required a small dedicated tank, a small pump to a well, and dedicated pipes for the toilets.
Potable water is for all other needs (sink, shower, etc).
Re: New, slippery toilet coating provides cleaner flushing, saves water
#59Why don't we use grey water to flush toilets? It can use water either from the bathroom sink or shower.
Honestly, I do. I've placed a bucket in the sink to capture waste water from washing hands, which is then reused for flushing the toilet after depositing... liquid contents in it. It saves a bit off the water bill and also made me realize just how much water I use up when washing hands... Of course I hide the bucket when guests come, it's too weird a thing - but in all honesty, I've wished many times for a system for…
It's exceedingly unlikely your American home is keeping graywater separate from blackwater. If it were, you would know, it would have been mentioned as it's quite exceptional.
California not long ago changed its laws regarding graywater handling in response to the sustained droughts. Now residents are permitted to divert graywater themselves for other purposes like irrigation and gardening. So it's become a little more common to find diverted graywater systems in response to this change, but they're often ad-hoc diy setups in drought-stricken regions.
You're right though, showers and laundry are huge wastes of water, at least relative to residential water use. Unlike toilets, they're also much harder/impossible problems to solve without the voluminous use of clean water. With toilets there are options like composting and incinerating, and in places with ocean access seawater can be used for flushing. Bathing and laundry don't really have alternatives.
Re: New, slippery toilet coating provides cleaner flushing, saves water
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
Something I have wondered a couple times when this comes up: When people say "Water bill", do they mean solely water, or water + sewer? Where I live, the two are bundled, and the total bill is also higher than our internet bill. (~$100 for water vs $75 for internet) I live in Iowa, which doesn't have Great Lakes levels of water lying around, but we also have no shortage of the stuff.
Yes, they're often combined, on the basis that it's easier to measure water usage than sewer usage and the latter is presumed to be proportional to the former.
So when people say "my water bill is higher than $X", do they mean the combined bill? Does the town I live in just have abnormally high water prices for an area without water scarcity, or is water just artificially cheap in other places?