Money Saving Green – Greening up your Bathroom

Bathrooms come in all sorts of colours, and the other day when I was talking about going green in the bathroom, someone actually mistook what I meant and thought I was planning on installing a green bathroom suite (urgh). I soon put them straight, however, and explained to them that what I was actually thinking about was how I could make my bathroom more environmentally friendly. Toilets, it seems to me, are one place where you can be pretty green without changing things very much at all, even though I've found that many people think it's a place they can't be green at all.

How much water?

Using water to flush the loo is pretty much a given in most bathrooms, but there are ways to reduce the amount of water you use, which will in turn save you money if you're on a water meter. In your existing toilet you could simply place a brick, filled bottle of water or a water hippo in your cistern. What this does is displace some of the water so that each time you flush the equivalent amount of water is saved. (Money saving tip: A water hippo is a device that is designed to use in this way, but it's just as easy to use a brick wrapped tightly in some silver foil!)

Another alternative is to look at fitting a dual flush system. This basically gives you two options when you flush: a short flush where only a small amount of water is pushed through, or a long flush where more water goes through.

Keeping bath or shower water to use for flushing the toilet is something else that can be done, either just by manually using a jug to pour water from the bath into the cistern each time, or by spending a bit of cash and getting the bath outlet hooked up to a holding tank which then supplies the cistern without needing you to be involved.

Cleaning your toilet

Cleaning your toilet is of course the other place where most people use a fair amount of chemicals, such as bleach and toilet cleaner, disinfecting blocks, and things to make it smell fragrant. There are some very good alternatives these days, and not all of them cost a fortune either. One of the best known is Ecover, but have a look at one of our affiliates, such as Big Green Smile (remember to click on the link on the front of this newsletter, then you help raise money for the BGI) to find other eco-cleaners.

In fact it's amazing how easy it is to get a toilet clean just with a bit of scrubbing with the brush and then a good flush. However, if you don't feel that's good enough, you can go a little further, and use simple things like vinegar and soda crystals, both of which can be bought very cheaply and are far better for the environment than bleach and chemical cleaners. Vinegar is great for removing limescale even in the toilet - just shoosh as much water out as possible and pour in a couple of cups of white vinegar, leave it overnight, and then scrub and flush. Soda crystals are good for a stained toilet bowl; again shoosh as much water out as possible, and pour in a kettleful of boiling water. Spoon in your soda crystals and swoosh them around a little. Leave for an hour or two and then use a pumice stone to remove the stains.

Saving money and saving the environment: that can't be bad!

Suki Bryson

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