Revenge of the low-flow toilets
San Francisco's love of low-flow toilets has not been without consequence — most notably a pungent summertime stench. Now, the city plans to use bleach to combat the odor.
Photo: John Blyberg/Flickr Hydrogen peroxide, that common chemical used in your home to disinfect cuts and scrapes or put to work when you add ‘oxy’ powder to your laundry to whiten whites, is equally effective and produces none of the downstream issues of chlorine bleach. It is being used cost effectively today to treat sewage odor in many places in the United States, such as Boston and Miami, as well as internationally in Germany and France.An even better choice would to use a pro-biotic solution, that is, enzymes or bacteria that would simply ‘eat’ the smell then degrade harmlessly. Used correctly, they could even be used to prevent the problem from occurring again by restoring the healthy balance of microbes in our sewer system.Using sodium hypochlorite, commonly known as bleach, is the equivalent of using a sledgehammer to crack an egg; it's the wrong tool, and it will cause irreversible collateral damage.
Officials claim that the stink has been made worse by the increase in the number of installed low-flow toilets, which reduce the amount of water in the sewage system that otherwise would dilute the smell. It is a tragic irony that the city's plan to address a nuisance created by positive conservation efforts is to pollute our water system with toxic chemicals.Such a toxic shock to our system would render our sewage eternally dependent on chemicals to treat this problem, not to mention damage our system by corroding our sewage pipes. A redesign of our system is needed.Why are we using 19th century chemistry to combat a 21st century problem? Is San Francisco not in the cradle of clean tech innovation? Other cities are already using better solutions today, and they are simple and cost effective.
| Previous Post House with Slide: Stairs ... who needs 'em? | Next Post A BubbleRoom of one's own |
Comments
Water Conservation Efforts are Unwittingly Leading to “Dry Drains”
By: Ron George, CPD, President, Ron George Design & Consulting Services.
Many experts agree there are a multitude of factors contributing to water shortages in many areas of the world. These factors include: Global warming, Increases in population, Lack of proper water utility infrastructure, Wasteful practices and Under priced water. We will never run out of water because water is constantly here in the.... More
Eventually, these low flow toilets will cost society a fortune, both in tax money, and in energy waste. In a couple of decades, as the muck builds up from slow flow rates down there, millions of miles of pipes will become blocked. It will take trillions of gallons of water and millions of gallons of diesel fuel to constantly clean them out. Meanwhile, toxic chemicals will do great damage, as they are substituted for nice clean water in many places. The gas that is coming out of the sewers is.... More
These low flush toilets dont make sense in areas that dont have a water shortage. I been pooping outside at night to save money. Many times I poop in a neighbors yard who ownes a dog. They always think their dog did it. I laugh when I watch them pick it up when they clean the yard from dog crap. Sometimes look in my neighbors windows while pooping at night.
Offer a rebate to citizens to replace low-flush toilets with 4-gallons-per-flush toilets and solve the problem and nix the chemicals. Much cheaper! And add an auto-flush device to existing 1.6 gallon toilets to flush them every 3 hours!
As attested by many stories of uninformed, misguided, and fatal or near-fatal RV-toilet-cleaning stories, it is a VERY BAD IDEA to try to unclog/clean sewage facilities with bleach. Said facilities may contain urine, which decomposes to form chemicals including ammonia, and bleach contains chlorine. Combine them and you get chlorine gas, an extremely corrosive substance whose effects are much worse than "a bad smell." Like, eating the membranes off your eyes and the linings of your lungs and.... More
Go back to toilets that flush normal and quit playing with what works. It's a No-Brainer. Geezus.
Go back to toilets that flush normal and quit playing with what works. It's a No-Brainer. Geezus.
I dont live in SF i live in Pa.I have an low flo toilet it seems to work ok for me,but i was aware of the problems that come with them,so once a day i run my water wasting washing machine to flush out my sewer.I also have an water saving shower head and an water saving washer. two washing machines one to save water and one to flush out my sewer.I have to say the best way to save water is to pee outside,do it all the time 40 years of saving water equals $$$$$.
I suggest we flush our toilets a minimum of 3 times for each use.
Research your MAP rating. Builders like to install cheap toilets that have a 350 MAP rating. Those tend to clog on anything. If you find a toilet with a 1000 MAP rating. You will almost never have to flush more than once.
Another way to tackle the problem is to leverage the power of social network ( yes, is the same tool that allow the people of the Middle East to send their beloved dictators packing, but utilize here to remedy our sewer problem) to aggregrate our flushing activities, yes, by synchronize our flushes we'll able to send our smelly by products efficiently down the sewer. We may lost our right to brag that our city does not smell like Paris in the morning, but it a little thing to lose in the grand.... More
Installing metered toilet in private and public place, 25c per flush, heavy usage will incur penalty (no flush for 30 days). The best revenue enhancing scheme ever devise.
You know... metered toilet will just mean this place will be more like france... people will be cheap wont spend the 25 cents and pinch one off in the alley... Stop trying to influence society with taxes or policy.
No flow toilets are useless, and fail to conserve water. I suspect they actually use more water than the conventional toilets they replace: instead of one flush, the no-flow toilets need ten.
Another stupid idea we would all be better off without. The only winners are the developers - who get to lie about new home water usage, and thus build more homes (without needing to provide the supporting infrastructure - like new reservoirs, and adequate upgrades to water distribution.... More
The real solution starts with a high-flow flush of the fools occupying the State house in Sacramento, who have been draining this once-beautiful state into it's pitiful condition. And hopefully, on the way down the drain, they can take their Gov Moonbeam with them.
I've used low flow toilets. They do stink. And most of them require multiple flushes to clear, so there is no net saving in water. So typical of the dumb socialist mindset in SF Supervisors ... they forget the law of unintended consequences can never be repealed.
My toilet flushed just fine before I complained about paying huge sewer charges for water I used on the lawn. They wouldn't adjust the charges but they insisted on putting in a low flow for me, against my will. Now I have a dead lawn and a toilet I have to flush more than once for solid waste. I had no opinion of the water company until that event. Now I assume it is run by a one size fits all idiot.
While it may be 'inconvenient' to flush twice for solid waste (remember how most of the world handles body waste), I doubt you need to for urine only use. For most that is the majority of the flushes, and can save water if your other point is taken into account (too many not thinking about the whole system and unintended consequences).
... is a product engineered to work with a particular amount of water jerry rigged so that it doesn't work properly anymore. If the city has decided everybody has to change their toilets to something engineered to work with less water, and make all the owners and landlords change out the toilets, I'll buy stock in Kohler and cover the cost, as my landlady has religious prohibitions against paying for anything. I'm not sure what the rest of the world's handling of body waste has to do with.... More
in S.F. the cost of water is about a penny. saving 20 million gallons equals $200,000. correcting the problem (government interference) by going back to full flush toilets would be the cheapest solution.
You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that the motivation behind lo flo toilets is freeing up water for builders and developers--the very idea that flushing waste with LESS water benefits the environment is laughable--the sad part is we have so many people conditioned to believe what ever they are told that the horrid idea actually gained backing--
Leave it to the TreeHuggers to stink up the place
I believe low flow plumbing was invented by Al Gore. He had probably invested in Porcelain manufacturing before mandating his low flow "improvement". Al is very good at investing first before he promotes a new concept.
Would someone mind seconding that other great innovation of waterless urinals? Pricey, proprietary cartridges that must be replaced every 30 days compounded with the salt deposits that build up and require the entire unit to be removed from the wall so the crust can be scraped. I wonder what we save after investing the energy to manufacture and then discarding nasty, condensed urine filled plastic(yea petroleum!) cartridges? Oh yeah, even when they do work, they stink!
$$$THINK.... More
Would someone mind seconding that other great innovation of waterless urinals? Pricey, proprietary cartridges that must be replaced every 30 days compounded with the salt deposits that build up and require the entire unit to be removed from the wall so the crust can be scraped. I wonder what we save after investing the energy to manufacture and then discarding nasty, condensed urine filled plastic(yea petroleum!) cartridges? Oh yeah, even when they do work, they stink!
$$$THINK.... More
Every time I visit San Fran, it ain't the sewers that smell, it's the sidewalks that the homeless use as a bathroom that stink. Maybe they should be spraying that bleach around the entire town, not just dumping it in the sewers.
The oxygen stuff used to whiten laundry, is Sodium Percarbonate, not Hydrogen Peroxide, and the solution to San Francisco's water problems, is to connect the city's supply lines to the Ocean, and use and influent pump to draw in water several times a year, and to simply flush the lines towards the treatment centers. Then add the peroxide.
Sodium Percarbonate is the annhydrous mixed salt of Sodium Carbonate and Hydrogen Peroxide....quit talking about things you don't know. The peroxide will do exactly what he said it would do and the carbonate anion will act as a mild buffer. It's actually a really good idea
Good idea. Maybe someone else knows why this wouldn't be done (saltwater causing problems with processing?). It sounds like an EXCELLENT use for ocean water, which is abundant resource but can't be used for anything without massive treatment.
Centrifugue the sewage to 93/94% because that is water , then press the semi solid waste and use it in various ways, such as to produce gas, fertilizer and even solid burnable material. The water can be treated by bacteria and swamps - which in itself cleans it again for drinkable eater.
First off, unless you're WWII vet who returned home from the South Pacific through the Golden Gate, you have no right to use the term "Frisco" ...and "SanFran"? Nobody with any class uses that moniker. Show a little respect. Secondly, this is a waaayyyyyy over-reported story. I spend a lot of time in The City and frankly, it pretty much smells like just about any other city to me. Okay, not as bad as say, New York or LA or Denver or New Orleans, but pretty much like most any urban setting:.... More
SAN FRAN SAN FRAN SAN FRAN SAN FRAN!
REALLY? You're that pompous?
I'm from LA. I appreciate that Frisco hates being referred to as Frisco. Therefore I never miss an opportunity to refer to Frisco as Frisco.
The rest of the nation often uses the terms SanFran or Frisco. I'm sure there are many abbreviated terms that you use as well. For example, you wrote LA, did you mean all of Louisiana or Los Angeles?
You need the low flow toilet with the air-jet booster. It mixes air with the water and propels the water so you don't just get a flush, you get a "bursting-jet of water and air" which is much more powerful than your standard low-flow toilet.
That - or head for Canada ! They still have standard flows up North !
Booster? I thought we were talking Solid Rocket Boosters. Now there is something that I would pay to subsidize. Solid Rocket Boosted Low Flow toilets! What's not to love! I think I see MythBusters doing an episode on that quite soon.
Maybe God's judgement on a sinful lifestyle
Only civil engineers know how much water it takes to move a turd 5 miles in a 12 inch pipe. You folks in San Fran got what you deserve Liberals!
Liberal? You do know that San Francisco is the most conservative city in the US? Right? If not, you should do the research. One street out of the whole city is liberal and the whole city gets the blame.
Are you kidding or just crazy as the libs? San Fran Sicko or wacko keeps voting in the SUPER libs.Even Savage is a lot of crazy clamoring for attention every day; and he is supposed to be the conservative.
There is just as much water today as there was a million years ago, so why exactly are we conserving?
Or maybe Feinstein.
One steet is liberal? Ridiculous. Show us even one street that is not ultra-liberal.
I like the alternative to "Going to San Francisco". But my real comment is the use of rain water to solve our water problems. I live in a city where there is plenty of rain but none of it is used in the household even though its delivered for free. Everyone should be using rainwater for their toilets. It would also help divert it from storm sewers during a downpour. Only a small fraction of the water we consume is actually ingested and most people buy bottled water anyway. Lets start using.... More
It's a ****** sitution
That has hit upon our nation
Nobody who sees the results of crazy environmentalism is surprised by this. No studies were done to look at unforeseen consequences. Same with anthropogenic global warming. There is no indication that humans are responsible for GW, or even if it's actually occurring. This situation is amusing. I'm glad it's not MY tax money going in to try to fix it.
Humans may not be "responsible" for GW but most of us are not helping to limit it for damn shure !! Cows produce a s**tload of GHG but, believe it or not, they can't help it! People around my area think I'm crazy just for recycleing alone. I for one would rather error on the side of crazy environmentalism!!!!
I absolutely agree with you. The problem is that most environmental activists came to their conclusions and took action without a smidgen of science and technology in their backgrounds. They didn't do any analysis of consequences or examine alternatives. But they adore ACTION so they took it. Now, they have to grapple with the smell. Any systems engineer could have told them what would happen with 'low-flow'. I encountered it all though my last vacation - having to flush two or three.... More
Well, for some aspects, it's difficult to determine what the future impacts would be from making environmentally conscience choices. Hindsight is 20-20. But foresight is usually far from 20-20, even with the best science and the most thorough studies. Sometimes it takes several imperfect actions and imperfect steps to get to a better place. We should not let the fear of action lead us to inaction.
I think saving and conserving water is always a good thing. But in this case, there is an.... More
