Dual Flush is an interactive water saving design for a toilet. It is created with the internal flush valve allowing two separate flushing volumes for disposing waste. This type of cistern gives you the choice between a half flush for disposing liquid waste or a full flush for disposing solid waste.
Unlike the standard American toilets, solid and liquid waste is handled in different ways in the dual flush toilet systems. In countries like Australia, the dual flush toilet has become very popular as it serves the purpose of conserving water. The modern-day toilets are provided with two different switches; one is a smaller one and the other one is larger. But, what is the main agenda behind having two different switches and what purpose do they serve? Well, let us dig in deeper into this article to find out the purpose of a dual-flush toilet.
What Purpose do the dual-flush toilets serve?
Since their inception in 1980, dual-flush toilets were made to reduce the amount of water flushed during use. They feature two different buttons to perform two different kinds of flushes. The difference in buttons depends on the waste in the toilet. One button for liquid waste, another for solid waste
There are two types of lever systems present in the dual flush toilet system. The larger one uses around 6 to 9 litres of water, which is effectively used to flush away the solid waste; while the smaller lever is used to flush away liquid waste with 3-4 litres of water. Now you must think, what difference does it really make anyway? Well, according to research results,
when a household adopts the method of dual flushing more than 20,000 litres of water can be saved just in a year of time as compared to the amount of water used during single flushes. One glitch about the dual flush toilets is their installation charges are higher than that of the conventional toilet flushing systems; however, we cannot ignore the fact they take us one step closer to protecting our environment and will be easier on pockets while we pay our water bills.
Make sure to effectively use the dual purpose toilets from the next time. You can use the smaller level to flush the liquid waste and make use of the larger lever if you go to take a dump. Taking steps even as small as just toilet flushing can do wonders in protecting our environment.
Some of the problems addressed with dual flush toilets:
Initially, when dual flush toilets were introduced into the market, the short flush wasn’t as effective as it claimed to be. Some of the unpleasant experiences were reported as the toilet wasn’t able to flush enough water remove waste entirely into the drainage system. However, all the problems once reported were successfully addressed by the inventors of the new-gen flushing system. With the new dual flush systems available today, all the issues have been resolved and they are not prone to blocking of waste, anymore.
Dual flush toilets handle solid and liquid waste differently from standard American style toilets, giving the user a choice of flushes. It's an interactive toilet design that helps conserve water that has caught on quickly in countries where water is in short supply, like Australia, and in areas where water supply and treatment facilities are older or overtaxed. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reports that by the year 2013, an estimated 36 states will experience water shortages as a result of increased water usage and inefficient water management from aging regional infrastructures. Using less water to flush liquid waste makes sense, but in the United States there may be cultural biases that make accepting a more hands-on approach to personal waste harder to accept.
For a time, toilets were called necessaries, one in a long line of euphemisms used to describe the business end of handling a simple biological process. One problem is that bodily waste is a delicate topic, so delicate that culture can be as much a factor in affecting change as necessity. Consider the words: defecate, poop and pee. They're not accepted in polite conversation, are they? We keep our bodily functions under wraps, so any changes in our approach to handling them can create culture shock and resistance.
Imagine being in charge of a household that relied on the safe and familiar use of the family outhouse. Now, consider the reaction you may have had when the outhouse moved indoors. Walking the privies, another euphemism for going to the outhouse, might have seemed a more sanitary option than moving personal waste management into your home, yet the bathroom still made its way inside.
Dual flush toilets may be another defining moment in the development of the American john: the introduction of environmental conservation to the process of elimination. Interest in low flow and dual flush toilets is on the rise in the United States, due in part to increased government regulation and the rising cost of water, and there are incentives for making changes in the way we use the commode. In the next sections, we'll see why change may be a good thing, learn more about the specifics of the dual flush and find out how government and business are coming together to help America flush responsibly.
Next up, let's take a closer look at the dual flush toilet's history and popularity around the world.
Dual Flush Toilet Technology.
The Australians are credited with leading the way in the development of dual flush technology. In 1980, Bruce Thompson of Caroma Industries created the first two-button flushing system, a convenient method of manually selecting the water volume of each flush -- a half flush for liquid waste and a full flush for solid waste -- with the push of a button [source: Biotechnology Innovations]. Necessity was the driving force for the change. Traditional toilets used lots of water, a commodity that was in short supply on a continent that has erratic rainfall and experiences frequent and prolonged droughts.
The idea of evaluating waste to determine the most water-friendly way to getting rid of it caught on, and by 1993, a redesign reduced by half the amount of water used per flush. This led to international interest in the design. Most modern dual flush toilets use less than a gallon of water (3 liters, approximately) to flush liquid waste and around 1.6 gallons (6 liters) to flush solid waste [source: Nash]. This is a big savings over old toilet styles that used five gallons (19 liters) or more for each and every flush.
Today, dual flush toilets are used widely in Australia, Europe and Asia, and they're catching on in other areas as well. Increased environmental awareness, government regulation, the availability of monetary incentives and the rising cost of water are making the changeover to dual flush and low flow toilet designs more attractive to U.S. consumers.
So how do they work? In the next section, we'll take a look at how dual flush toilets handle waste.
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