PowerSwitch

Saw this on Dragon's Den a few weeks ago. The guy got a complete roasting, and didn't help himself by being a bit EcoFascist.

I'll be getting one myself soon; too often I flush and look at the water disappearing, thinking "STOP!".

www.interflush.co.uk

Or if you're strapped for cash you could just stick a bog hog in the cistern and put a sign up in the toilet saying "If it's yellow, let it mellow. If it's brown, flush it down"

What we do is keep some old 6-pint milk bottles by the toilet, full of rain water (if there's enough) or bath water with a spot of bleach added. If you've just had a pee, then pouring half the bottle down seems to be sufficient, which is about 1/5 of the water used in a flush I think.

It's a bit labour-intensive filling the bottles, but I thought that kind of task might get me used to doing more things by hand, ready for the post-peak world!

mikepepler wrote:What we do is keep some old 6-pint milk bottles by the toilet, full of rain water (if there's enough) or bath water with a spot of bleach added. If you've just had a pee, then pouring half the bottle down seems to be sufficient, which is about 1/5 of the water used in a flush I think.

It's a bit labour-intensive filling the bottles, but I thought that kind of task might get me used to doing more things by hand, ready for the post-peak world!

What a good idea!
If you also put a plastic bottle (or 2) (or a brick) you were going to recycle into the cistern, filled with water, then when you do flush the loo, you're flushing a plastic-bottle-full-less each time

Can you imagine the savings in water , if everybody in the country adopted the policy of "if its urine its stays up , if its brown it goes down?"

I mean flushing everytime you go for a slash is so wasteful , and cannot be that unhygenic?

Or am I drinking too much ?

Bandidoz wrote:Saw this on Dragon's Den a few weeks ago. The guy got a complete roasting, and didn't help himself by being a bit EcoFascist.

Kinda stunned you thought he was an 'ecofascist' - I thought he was really gentle, and liked him for not understanding that the dragons are only interested in making a quick buck (or rather quick mega-bucks). For him money was secondary - doing something positive for the earth was his priority. But he wasn't trying to make everyone think the same as him, though if more people did think like him don't you think we wouldn't be in the mess we're in?

There's a right way to be right.

"Gentle" is the last word I would use in describing his qualities. To me he came across as being a completely polarized bitter and twisted oaf with an obnoxious ego, a chip on his shoulder and no empathy whatsoever for his audience. He's probably so far up his own arse that I bet he didn't learn anything from the encounter. Essentially saying, "Water Companies are Evil, Money's Evil, Profit's Evil, but can I have some Money please you Evil Entrepreneurs?"

I seem to recall seeing water-saving toilet-cistern ballast bags made by South-West-Water at the C.A.T, so his assertion that the water companies just want to waste water is a bit dodgy. His product is great in concept but is very fiddly in implementation so I suspect that's more likely the reason why the water companies didn't run with the product. When I read the instructions and held the pieces in my hand I just thought, "no-one is ever going to invest in this".

Entrepreneurs are in the business of making money. For every 10 investments they make, only 1 is likely to get anywhere. They have to be sharp. They expect good returns on their good investments to compensate for the failures. They don't care whether a product is "Designed in Yorkshire, Made in Yorkshire".

He could very easily have put the politics to one side, saying "There's money to be made in saving water", mentioning that aquifiers are low (so helping to avert water rationing - I don't recall him mentioning it) and that it allows environmentally-concious people (a growing fraternity) to contribute without having to go hardcore with composting toilets or installing greywater harvesting. In other words, he didn't even get the basic "features and benefits" right.

Instead he just got on his high horse. Didn't level with them at all. I found him to be extremely irritating and cringeworthy. He very nearly put me off wanting his own product.

I therefore class him as an EcoFascist. One who completely patronises and alienates laypersons, reinforcing the Jeremy Clarkson stereotype of environmentalists being obnoxious impractical hair-brained tree-hugging w**kers. "More EcoWarrior than Businessman". He needs a really stiff kick up the arse.

People are slowly waking up, they're catching on. Guys like him just put them off at the first hurdle. How not to be an environmentalist 101.

Joe wrote:Or if you're strapped for cash you could just stick a bog hog in the cistern and put a sign up in the toilet saying "If it's yellow, let it mellow. If it's brown, flush it down"

The Golden Rule of water saving!

(sorry)

If you're a bit strapped, or even, like me, renting and loathe to improve your landlords property (since he's loaded and living in Bermuda!)

try one of these:

www.save-a-flush.co.uk

I was quite lucky and picked one up free at a fair.

Think I might re-use an old plastic bottle filled with water (or maybe if I wee in it instead, it will save an extra flush before I put it to proper use).

Yes a 1 litre plastic bottle works well.

Easier to fill from your bath or washing-up water rather than practising your aim

Bandidoz wrote:Yes a 1 litre plastic bottle works well.

Easier to fill from your bath or washing-up water rather than practising your aim

Although you could always use plastic bottles to practice your aim and then empty the full bottle on your compost heap.

Although in my case I don't really fancy cycling the mile and half to my allotment with 8 litres of p!ss on my back... Imagine trying to explain that to the nurses after you've been hit by a car and rushed to hospital

ROFL! You've got my imagination running there

I read somewhere that urine should be watered down slightly to reduce its acidity (for watering plants); although I suppose it's not necessary for compost.