flush

The old folk wisdom that says place a brick in your toilet's water tank is partially correct: It's an effortless way to save water, but a brick isn't the best choice of object. Use a plastic bottle filled with water instead.

Our waste fertilizes our fields and is pumped back into the waterways that are our major sources of drinking water. Let’s take the journey from toilet to tap, shall we? A guest post from Simran Sethi and Sarah Smarsh.

The current engineering concept for dealing with human waste is to use vast quantities of water to wash it away, preferably into a sewer system where it will be treated before being discharged into the local river. The "flush and forget" system is expensive, water-intensive, it disrupts the nutrient cycle, and it is a major source of disease in developing countries.