in being enviro friendly, wee wee aren't so hygenic?

it's embarrassing to admit that i actually learned something from the demi moore/rob lowe movie about last night. but here you go --- each time you flush the toilet, six litres of water is used.

i'm glad that i learned something to keep me awake in that crap-tastic movie. six litres. that is a lot.

during the night, when i get up to wee, i have never been much of a flusher. i have trained charles to be much the same way. six litres of water! i wailed to him. he made all sorts of noises about bacteria and hygiene that i admit made very good sense.

during the summers at fintry, where there is a septic tank system, we sort of follow the old agage:

if it's yellow then its mellow

if it's brown, flush it down

every four wees or so, once the water gets YELLOW instead of yellowish, you flush.

is this wrong?

according to sebastian, my little primary one king, YES YES YES.

mummy, he instructed me, as he charged into my room the other day trying to see where i was hiding his birthday presents. "you didn't go to the toilet right".

oh dear, i thought we had sorted out this whole mummy can't wee standing up business a while ago, but i started explaining again about willies giving men a whole lot of advantages when weeing as long as they didn't abuse the privilege.

"no!" exclaimed my little crusader, "you didn't flush! you must!"

it's true. i didn't. and often, in my own bathroom, particularly if magnificent is away (as he is right now), i don't flush a lot if i am the only one contributing to the toilet.

this is a conundrum. in not flushing, sheryl crow says this makes me best friend forever of the environment. yet my son thinks i am a slatternly cow.

and if he didn't flush, i am not sure how i would react! i mean, he helps with the recycling and knows that recycling helps to keep Earth healthy, but, i am not sure that would be his impetus for not flushing.

bah humbug.

Comments

[Dad aka Granddad Blake]

Hello Tessie-Woo. I showed your blog to a friend of mine who lives at the old Arctic Red River post. His questions to me were:
1) What is a litre? 2 What is a toilet?

Love to all.....Dad

[Tammy]

*HAHA* I love this post!

Our thrones always go without a flushing after a night-time pee. Ours flushes so hard that it'll wake up the neighbors. Well that is if we actually had neighbors.

I also prefer to conserve water by peeing in the shower. Like killing two birds with one stone, the way I see it... :P

xoxo

[Allison]

I think I was reading Popular Science when I read about a way to save water with a special system that collects the waste water from your sink and then disinfects it and puts it your toilet. It's a pretty good idea if you ask me.

http://www.watersavertech.com/AQUS-System.html
http://www.watersavertech.com/Promotional_Material-Downloadable_PDF_File.pdf

[Louise M]

We have three toilets in our house, just converted our downstairs one to a dual low flow (use a little of the tank for a wee, use the whole tank for a poo), will be doing the other two early next year. I admit, I use the same "if it's yellow" saying when we are the only ones home, but quickly flush all toilets when company comes over. I always flush a public toilet. It might be time for Sebastion to understand (if he is already into recycling) about how precious our water supply really is and will jump on the "yellow/mellow" bandwagon at home.

[Stephanie]

I loved that movie! Now, I'm with Demi in that i won't waste the flush on a wrapper, but I do when I use the toilet- was taught that that's polite.

[Elaine]

Yep, sounds familiar. I grew up in a house with a septic system during a drought, and we were under strict instructions, especially as kids, NOT to flush unless really needed. Took my mother a while to untrain us after it started raining again.

I'm sure you know this, but supposedly you can reduce the amount of water your tank uses by putting a brick or another object into the tank. I was using an empty liter bottle filled with water....but then there was an earthquake that knocked the bottle on its side, preventing the toilet from flushing at all. Very embarrassing when the repairman pulled it out, especially since I'd forgotten it was in there.

[joeinvegas]

Difficult to explain the differences to a little one, but he is intelligent and will probably then start jumping in with 'why did you' lines instead of 'why not?'