Doing better on toilet paper

Time to talk toilets. Or more precisely, toilet paper.

We recently converted from using off-the-shelf recycled/ unbleached/ plantation-grown etc toilet paper to ordering from an Aussie business combining environmental sustainability, toilet paper and support for great poverty-reducing aid projects, the cleverly-name 'Who Gives a Crap'.

In addition to being made of either recycled paper, sugarcane or bamboo fibres, and being produced with less water use than most toilet paper, WGAC donates half their profits to build toilets for people don't have access to toilets. Which is 40% of the world's population.

Initial Time: fifteen minutes getting online and placing an order. 

Initial Cost: $48 for a box of 48 'double length' rolls. Orders over $30 are delivered free, and arrived very promptly. Due to a *slight* miscommunication between Tyson and I about who was ordering the toilet paper, we started with 96 rolls. But as you can see, 96 rolls of toilet paper are good for many things besides wiping bums.

Ongoing time or cost commitment: As above, repeat. 

Impact: Five years ago I wrote that Australians use 1.3 billion sheets of toilet paper a day (57 sheets per person), of which 95% was not recycled. I haven't found anything to say this has changed significantly. So the first impact is to continue ensuring we are reducing our consumption impact as much as possible on the toilet paper front.

But the more important reason for supporting WGAC is so that our consumption also contributes to improving health, life expectancy, education, women's safety and quality of life for people less fortunate than us. 

Waterborne disease is a major killer world-wide, especially of children. Every two minutes, a child dies of disease caused by not having access to clean water; every minute a newborn baby dies of infection caused by lack of clean water. Worldwide, 2.3 billion people do not have access to a toilet, and many of these defecate outside, polluting water sources used by the whole community. Women going to the toilet outside are subject to harassment. Children (especially girls) without adequate toilets are more likely to drop out of school - and 34% of the world's schools do not have adequate toilets. In Sub-Saharan Africa, where nearly half the population cannot obtain clean water, 42% of health care facilities also do not have access to clean water; in South-East Asia, a similar percentage of health facilities do not have adequate toilets. (Stats source)

WGAC claims to have donated $478,500 to sanitation projects since they launched in 2012, along with saving 30,797 trees, 74 million litres of water and 5,922 tonnes of carbon dioxide. That's something I am glad to be part of.

Links:

https://au.whogivesacrap.org/  - Who Gives A Crap main page, inc online shop and plenty of info on the product, and the way money is used to support the poor. 

http://www.wateraid.org/au - Water Aid, the main agency WGAC supports - their website also has heaps of information and links about the global sanitation crisis.

http://washwatch.org/en/ - updates on improvements in world sanitation and water access, with funky graphics

Note: We are not personally associated in any way with this company and have not been given any incentives to promote them.

Washing machine

When Tyson's sister moved overseas earlier this year, she gave us her washing machine. 

Our previous machine was my first ever white goods purchase, to serve a student house share, and at the time it was relatively water and energy efficient. More than ten years later it was valiantly continuing to serve, but was no longer the most efficient option available - and getting a bit small for a family. (How do such little people make such large piles of washing?!)

In addition to using a more efficient machine, we are also using its multiple function buttons to override its less efficient features. We continue to choose cold water every time, and only run the machine if it is full. We also now have control of the spin speed, and (except on very wet winter days) reduce it from the preset 1000rpm to the minimum 600rpm. It is also possible to end the wash completely before the spin cycle is complete, and I do this when I walk past during the spin.

Initial Time: an hour or two relocating the machine 30km across the suburbs and reinstalling.

Initial Cost: zero (big thanks to Auntie L!)

Ongoing time or cost commitment: Clothes takes a little longer to dry if not spun fiercely for the full cycle - but for at least six months of the year (more like nine) they still dry in a day on the outside clothesline in the sun. In wet months I keep the long spin for nappies and heavy items, but short/600rpm spin for other things.

Impact: The advertised energy and water 'stats' of the new machine - an Electrolux EWF10831 - are about the same as the old (310kWhr/yr warm; 130kWhr/yr cold; 68L per wash).

However, the new machine can take 8kg, rather than 5.5kg. This means that the total number of loads is reduced from 5-7 a week to 3-5 a week, and this is where the big saving comes: the machine is using the same amount of energy to wash 45% more washing. Energy ratings are calculated assuming one wash load per day. If we do four loads a week, we use around 177kWhr/yr. If we do six loads a week, we do around 265kWhr/yr. So, we are potentially saving 188kWhr per year, a reduction of 154kg of carbon dioxide. (That's without any alteration to the spin cycle - we could not figure a way to calculate that)

Our observation is that the new machine uses about 60% as much water per wash. We catch the water, so can make a pretty good guess at this. Previously we used around 85L per wash; now we are using around 50L. Allowing for the reduced number of loads, that's a reduction of around 16,000L per year.

Before you race out and replace your washing machine, however, its worth considering the embodied energy involved: the energy (and water) used to manufacture and transport the machine, including the raw materials used to make the machine. In addition to the obvious plastic and steel, washing machines use copper, silver, gold, palladium and platinum. Although mostly used in small quantities in the machine's electronics, extraction of these metals is considered to have high environmental impacts. Even spread over a ten-year working life, the embodied energy in the production of a washing machine has been estimated at around 16% of its total environmental impact, with its disposal after use another 10%. That is, only three-quarters of the 'footprint' of a washing machine is the energy it uses to wash for ten years - the rest is its manufacture and disposal. Another website suggests a twenty-year life span (optimistic!) and has the embodied energy calculated as 5,681,430,000 Joules (1,578kWhr).

Which leads me to: We have a fully functioning 5.5kg front-loader washing machine to give away. If you or someone you know is setting up house or still needing to transition away from a top-loader, and could help spread the embodied footprint of the old machine over a few more working years, please get in touch.

Update: We gave the old machine away using 'GiveIt' and it is now heading for a family in need.

Recommiting ready for summer

This is the time of year when a number of our water and energy saving measures need to be reinstated for summer. Doing so involves a recommitment to these actions and, for some, a small degree of maintenance.

So our 'action' for November was not a new action but a recommitment to many previous actions, and in some ways it was the hardest 'action' I have committed to in the three and a half years we have been doing this. Here we go again. Does it never end?? I think life at home with two small children may be shaping that reaction! It is more difficult also, in my experience, to do something again, when it is no longer new and interesting. This is particularly so when it is restarting something that I have failed to continue on with as I originally intended.

After a week of that summer heat smell in the air it was time for Tyson to unroll shadecloths around the house. 

So far we have no new ones this year, but are reinstating all of those from previous years.

One of those along the driveway remains furled as it broke its moorings in winter storms and needs a more permanent hook attached to the bricks to keep it secure. The shock cord for another had also worn through and the rear courtyard shade is definitely not still using the original ocky straps from six summers ago! Overall, though, the shades and their fastenings are holding up well.

The grey water wheelie bin has been brought back into service. I discovered that I cannot get it over the laundry threshold (or if I do I spill quite a lot in the effort) so Tyson sourced some grey water hose to create an extension out the door ($20 for ten metres).

The door obviously doesn't lock like this, but a chock to stop it sliding open any further makes us reasonably confident to leave the washing machine running with its outlet pipe through the back door when we go out.

The original tap connection on the bin had also given us grief last summer, periodically leaking or unwinding itself and falling off, so Tyson purchased a new tank outlet connector (about $8). 

This required sanding the hole for the pipe slightly larger to make it fit, but so far has been a very successful adaptation. The hose we attach to the tap got little holes drilled along it some time last summer to create a drip system for better coverage.

We also put the tubs back into our shower and have grey water on hand again for toilet flushing. This stopped not on account of winter bringing rain, but because somewhere midyear, in late pregnancy, a string of minor ailments over three months had me desperate to change anything that might be contributing and grey water standing uncovered in our bathroom seemed a potential source of winter sniffles. And then we had a baby and I couldn't be bothered with even the small additional effort of gathering and flushing grey water.

The basin in our kitchen sink comes and goes. We are making another attempt at it this summer. Periodically we get fed up with it not getting emptied outside, or getting too dirty, and it is abandoned. Hence it was definitely one of the actions for me that was a recommit, not a routine, as we approach summer.

Costs and times for these actions are detailed in the links above to where I wrote about them originally. Aside from fifteen minutes here or there for maintenance, recommitting doesn't add more time than the original commitment. 

It is much easier, though, to continue with actions that are simply ongoing than to pick up these summer-oriented actions at the end of spring each year. Part of me is tired and thinks oh lets just water with a hose/ flush the toilet/ blast the aircon like everyone else. It was 37 degrees here yesterday (Celsius - that's 100 degrees Fahrenheit, for you in other lands - what some here refer to as 'the old hundred') and the heat made me grumpy. I am home full time with a three year old and a four month old. I get grumpy plenty quick enough all on my own - I don't need any extra grumpifiers! But then... the house kept quite cool most of the day, and when we eventually turned the aircon on (we are not ascetics, after all) I was still grumpy about the heat, so I might as well be sustainable and grumpy. When I look at my reaction, it is being trapped inside that bothers me, and aircon or passive cooling both have that same result. Its grey and raining today... some respite for me to think creatively about ways to get outside as much as possible through summer so I don't get that terrible trapped feeling. Any ideas?

What are you needing to recommit to at present?

Rethinking water

Over the past few months I have noticed that my thinking about water has been shifting. We've implemented lots of water-saving steps over the past three years (see here, here, here, here, here, here or here) but my thought patterns are only just catching up.

 

Three things are new:

(1) I am almost always conscious when I am using water. This may sound obvious, but how often do you turn on a tap without really noticing that water, our precious resource, is being used?

(2) When approaching a task that requires water, I find myself first considering whether it needs 'first' water or can use 'second' or even 'third' water. For example:

Drinking and cooking - first water, every time.

Showers - first

Garden - second (third if it hasn't had chemicals in it)

Rinsing items for the recycling - third

Handwashing delicate items - first

Soaking nappies - second

Flushing toilets - third 

Teeth - first

Hand washing - first or second

(3) Before I allow water to go somewhere it can't be reused (down the drain, into the garden) I do a mental check of whether it can be caught and, if so, whether it could be used again if it was.

I find there are still jobs that probably don't need the very cleanest water that I haven't adjusted to using recycled water for. Mopping floors is one - the water is dirty after the first swipe of the mop, but I still struggle to start with water from, say, the washing machine.

Here are some examples of how water might get used multiple times in our house:

first: shower

second: toilet

first: handwashing clothes

second: soaking nappies (just water, no chemicals)

third: garden

first: rinsing vegetables

second: bowl in the sink for dipping sticky fingers in

third: rinse out something for the recycling

The photo above is a hand-washed item dripping into seedling trays.

We've started capturing washing machine water again to keep up with the demand for recycled water - some days we were running out and having to use water straight from the tap for 'second water' tasks!

Initial Time:You cannot change your habitual thought patterns quickly. I think 2-3 years of small water-saving changes were necessary for this subconscious thinking shift to take place.

Initial Cost: Zero (unless you need to buy buckets)

Ongoing time or cost commitment:This depends on the task, but usually if I analyse it there is an equivalent time in the task if the water is coming from the tap. For example, decanting water from buckets into a watering can and watering our pots and planters took me about 15 minutes today, so I initially thought 'yes, it adds time', but waiting for the can to fill from the tap takes about the same amount of time.

There is an ongoing cost saving as water usage is reduced - especially where it is hot water, as I have discussed before.

Impact: Based on how much water is waiting in buckets right now and what I've already used this morning, I estimate we will use about 100L of recycled water today. We recycle less in winter as we don't need to water the garden. Assuming we use half this much recycled water for half the year, we are saving/ recycling around 27,000 L of water in a year. 

Finally a pic for the person who asked Tyson how exactly we capture water in the shower.

Making the toilet cisterns smaller

As I mentioned in June we have been thinking hard about ways to further reduce our water usage. A recent sustainability action was to wind down the float screw in our toilet cisterns. What this means is that when the water refills after a flush it gets to about 3cm lower than it used to and the float device registers the cistern as 'full'.

Initial Time: about one minute per toilet.

Initial Cost: zero.

Ongoing time or cost commitment: zero.

Impact: Each flush is using 1-2L less water. Even on 'half flush' there is NO REDUCTION in how effective the flush is. Again I am a little embarrassed at how long it took us to do something so easy and effective.

Moving from bath to shower

 

Somewhere midsummer we had to turn the water off at the mains for a day to allow pipe work in our street. We are one in a series of three units and the water meters for all three were replaced at the same time about two years ago. The residents of both other units have not changed in that time. Tyson came back from the meters to report that the unit directly behind (two adults, one baby, paved yard) had double the amount of water clocked on their meter already while the unit at the back (two adults, lush garden and rumours of a spa) had used ten times as much water as us in the two years. We were a bit stunned, but also quite cocky about our frugal water usage.

We were therefore quite miffed when towards the end of summer we got a six-month water bill indicating our water usage had increased by about 25% from the same time last year. How was this possible?! Last summer we had three adults and a baby in the house. This summer we have had two adults and a toddler. The only major change to water usage we could identify was Eva's move from the baby bath to the big bath. 

Subsequently we began encouraging Eva to share showers with us rather than have a bath. At present she probably has 1-2 baths per week and showers the rest. Partly I think the transition has been possible because showers are warmer. Baths are fun in summer and I suspect when it warms up again we may struggle to keep the number of baths to a minimum. 

Time to hang up the bathmat and move on...

Water use has become a more significant issue in Perth this year as we have had so little rain in the past twelve months. Media outlets recently reported that even if we have good rains this winter Perth's dams will be all out of drinking water by the end of next summer. Strangely this has not seemed to make any impression on Perth people's use of water. (Dams do only provide 25-45% of our drinking water, but that's still a lot of water we won't have!)

Initial Time: Toddler shared showers are generally quicker than toddler baths.

Initial Cost: Zero.

Ongoing time or cost commitment: Zero.

Impact: An average Eva bath uses about 50-60L of water (significantly less than if I have a bath!). Of this, about 20-25L is hot water, using about 1 unit of energy to heat with gas, meaning about 250g of Carbon Dioxide. An average shared shower uses about the same amount of water and gas. However, its washing two of us. (As the weather is cooler at present, I don't always have a shower on the nights when she has a bath, but I'm not committing to that so won't include it in my calculations - it can cover for when I forget myself and enjoy a long hot shower) Sharing a shower usually takes a little longer than showering alone but I estimate we are roughly saving 50L of water per day when Eva showers (~20L heated).  Lets say that's five nights a week... a total annual water saving of 13,000L per year, a total annual gas saving of 260 units and a total annual carbon reduction of 65kg.

Of course the catch is that when a toddler refuses to get out of the bath the amount of water used doesn't change, but when she refuses to get out of the shower the water keeps gushing down the drain. Yes we do turn it off despite protests but I don't want her to learn that using water responsibly is a painful thing that ruins your fun. Baths have fewer such layers of ethical complication!