Self-Flushing Toilets

by Sydney Perkins

Once the "stay-at-home" order was issued, I made myself a promise to use this time to become healthier and come back better than ever. Unfortunately, I did not keep many of my goals and spend my days surrounded by potato chips. I did manage to keep one promise, however: drinking more water. I have been healthily staying hydrated every day, which is excellent. But I have also been using the bathroom every couple of hours, which is less excellent. Using the toilet is natural, and with many staying at home, increased use is inevitable. However, it is still essential to focus on conserving water at the same time.

It's no secret that water conservation is necessary, especially in areas like LA, which are prone to droughts. Even though we should be cutting down on water use, the average American household uses 300 gallons of water per day, and toilets consume 24% of that water. Over 141 billion liters of water is used for the toilet across America each day. To decrease the water used in toilets, companies have designed different water-friendly toilets. However, they can be a bit of an investment for people looking for a cheap way to lessen their water use.

Luckily, a new product on the market is a much cheaper solution, so unnecessary water use.

It is a 2-step spray that makes the inside of your toilet bowl slippery and can reduce the amount of water used on toilets by up to 50%. One may ask, why does having a slick toilet bowl reduce water usage? Well, flushing solid waste uses much of the water in the toilets. If the toilet is slippery, less water is needed to flush down the waste. And as an added plus, it reduces the number of bacteria in your toilet!

Such an ingenious design! Who could have thought of it? Only mother nature, of course! This design for the spray was inspired by a carnivorous plant whose rough hairs become slippery when it rains so that bugs will slide right into its mouth. While the design concept takes root in a plant, the spray itself works a bit differently. As I mentioned earlier, it is a two-step process. The first step is to cover the surface in tiny nano-scale polymer hairs that are around 100,000 times thinner than a human hair. The second step is to coat the strands in a lubricant, then BAMM! Your toilet is practically self-flushing.

Of course, using this spray will not physically reduce the amount of water your toilet uses. You can use the hack of placing water bottles in your toilet to displace the water and trick your toilet into thinking that it is full. If you already have a toilet that has two options for flushing, then you only need to use the liquid flush.

This magic spray is not only used for household toilets. Other potential applications include using it in the toilets in developing countries, allowing cosmetic products to slide out of the bottles more efficiently, and on wind turbines to prevent bugs from sticking to them.

Considering all of the problems this spray can solve, one might say that it is a solution to many sticky situations.

Online seller (we are not sponsored): https://spotlessmaterials.com/products/toilet-coating

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Sydney P.

Generation-E

Sources:

https://www.epa.gov/watersense/how-we-use-water#:~:text=The%20average%20American%20family%20uses,of%20this%20use%20occurs%20indoors.

https://www.fastcompany.com/90432084/this-new-magical-coating-saves-water-by-making-toilets-so-slippery-that-poop-basically-flushes-itself