Fill Your Toilet Cistern with Rocks to Reduce the Amount of Water you Flush Away.
Of all the water in all the oceans, lakes and streams, only 3% of the water on this planet is fresh. Of that 3% only 1/3 is suitable for human consumption. So why do we keep flushing that water down the drain?
Americans are literally flushing away 40% of the water used in our homes- that’s more than 48 billion gallons of water being flushed down our toilets every day. You and every other person is contributing an average of 9,000 gallons each year.
Each flush wastes 3-5 gallons of water. Add that number to the amount of times you use the restroom each day, then add all those unnecessary times when you used your toilet as a waste basket- flushing down a tissue or cigarette butt because you didn’t feel like throwing it away. Now multiply that by every member in your family and you’ve got a lot of good water going down the drain. In fact, the US government believes that we flush approximately 40% of our all household water down the drain. You can easily minimize that waste by putting rocks in your cistern.
It may seem like an odd water saving idea, but if you lift up the lid on the back of your toilet you will notice that it is filled with water. There is also a line that indicates the toilet is filled with the appropriate amount of water (3-5 gallons depending on the toilet). Each time you flush, all of the water empties out into the bowl to clean it, then flush back through the exit pipe. The point of the rocks (you can also use a sand filled sealed water bottle) is to displace some of that water so that the toilet thinks it is holding the requisite 3-5 gallons. Don’t worry, as long as you leave at least 2 gallons of water it should still function properly (and if it doesn’t, just take out a few rocks).
