Composting toilets are one way you can conserve more water at home (composting toilet systems have also been developed and successfully implemented in high traffic areas like schools and offices). There is lots of opportunity for you to conserve water in your home. Some of the options are more involved than others, but they are a small price to pay for the environment.
First, let me clarify the problem. We have clean, treated water pumped into our homes for our use. In some places, residents have to pay for the water (either by volume or a flat monthly fee) and in some places the water is still free. We use the clean, treated water in our showers and baths to clean ourselves, in our toilets to remove our waste, in our washing machines to clean our clothes, in our kitchen to clean our hands, our dishes and our food, and in the garden to water our plants and lawns. There are countless other ways we use clean water at home, but I want to keep this article manageable. The formerly clean water is then pumped to sewage treatment plants where we try to clean the water again.
The major waste is most often the shower. Hands up everyone who has stood in the cozy hot shower and just let the water run all over you just because it felt good. Pretty much everyone has at one point or another and it is a BIG waste. When you design your home and you can actually have the shower run-off (which is often called grey water because it is no longer clean) be used in your irrigation system. The water used in your sinks can be reused the same way. The water is run through a filter to remove chemicals like soap and hair conditioner before it is used for the irrigation. You may also want to install low flow fixtures in your showers and aerators in your faucets to further decrease water use.
Flush toilets are another major waster. A regular toilet uses about 4 to 6 gallons of clean water for one flush (which adds up to about 100,000 gallons of water being flushed by the average North American family every year). You can install low flow toilets to reduce the amount of water used and if you use composting toilets in your home you will be using zero gallons of water per year to flush. You can find composting toilets on the main stream market in North America, although most people do not know about them. They are very clean and hygienic when used properly and provide you with nutrient rich humus that you can add to your garden to make it healthier.
You can also do some work on the irrigation system itself. Drip irrigation systems are much more efficient that the traditional spray systems. With the drip system there is an outlet at the roots of every plant. The water slowly drips out and goes directly to the plant rather than being in accurately sprayed by spray irrigation.
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