
Side and the refilling operation has to last just long enough to fill Has to refill automatically from a kind of faucet on the There's a little bit more to toilets than this.

Levers are examples of what scientists call simple machines. They are literally mechanical because they flush and refill using levers inside-and Purely mechanical: pull the chain and the cistern empties through theįorce of gravity, washing the bowl clean for use again. Pushes a button or pulls a lever or a chain. Up above (called a cistern) waiting to flush into it when someone Simple: you have a waste pipe going through the floor and a tank of water Advantages and disadvantages of composting toilets.What's the problem with ordinary toilets?.You'll save more or less depending on how many people there are in your household. If you save 7 liters (1.8 US gallons) per flush and people in your home flush 10 times a day, you'll save at least 25,500 liters (6700 US gallons) per year. An old-style flush toilet typically uses 13 liters (3.4 US gallons), where a low-flush model will use only 6 liters (1.6 US gallons) and some models use only 4.8 liters (1.3 US gallons). Exactly how much difference that will make to your water consumption varies from one household to another.

Photo: Poop-tastic! Like most new toilets, this low-flush model is designed to save water the two buttons on top let you choose whether to flush with a large or a small amount. Ingenious "machines." Let's take a closer look! Most of the world's toilets are more modest than this, but they're still pretty Lid automatically to playing music while you use them. Of inventions, but imagine trying to live without them.Ī quarter of the world's people (some 2 billion of us) are in that unhappy position,Īt the opposite end of the scale, in Japan, people haveĮlectronic toilets that do everything from opening and closing the Toilet, lavatory, loo, water closet, WC, John,Ĭrapper, can-it's amazing we have so many names for something weĬare to talk about so little.
