From Ecopedia

Overview

Toilets are plumbing fixtures used for disposing all kinds of bodily waste through properly channeled sewage systems.

Modern-day toilets can be classified into two either dry or wet toilets, depending on the usage of water for plumbing. Wet toilets are most commonly known to produce environmentally-harmful black water, while dry toilets usually provided with adequate ventilation require no plumbing for inputting or evacuating water. ^[1]

Environmental Information

Most-modern day toilets are cleaned and maintained using various chemical cleansing products containing chlorine, hydrochloric acid and ammonia among other things. Almost all such cleansing chemicals are proven to be highly corrosive and usually tend to cut short the lifespan of the valves in the cisterns.

Moreover, apart from killing bad bacteria, the chemicals also cause damage to good bacteria that aid in breaking down the human waste.

Toilet Chemicals Generating Hazardous Compounds

Chlorine, which is most-commonly used a toilet-cleansing agent, is found to react with other organic material present in the environment to create dioxins, furans and other environmentally hazardous compounds.

Formaldehyde is another most commonly found chemical in toilet cleaning products. Formaldehyde, which is mainly used in toilets for camping, is a known carcinogenic shown to cause animal mutations.

Other environmentally damaging chemical ingredients in toilet cleaning products include:

• Diethylene glycol monobutyl ether causing harm to aquatic life
• Chlorinated phenols generating circulatory and respiratory toxins
• Sodium dichloroisocyanurate causing serious damage to aquatic organisms, besides leading to long-term environmental damage
• Triclosan, used primarily for antibacterial action is a cumulative toxic agent causing harm to plant, animal as well as aquatic organisms.
• Petrochemical-based de-scaling ingredients causing long-term damage to the environment

Most of the current-day water treatment facilities fail to totally remove the above-mentioned chemical ingredients from the sewage water, which eventually find their way into atmosphere causing serious environment problems. ^[2]

Environment-friendly toilets

Among many earth-friendly toilets available in the present-day market, compost toilets are gaining wide popularity across the world.

Compost toilets utilize aerobic processing to treat human excreta with little or no use of water. Compared to septic toilets performing anaerobic decomposition using large amounts of flush water, compost toilets offer environment-friendly waste-treatment alternatives. ^[3]

Compost toilets are typically chosen to remove the need for water for toilet flushing, avoid the discharge of potential pathogens and nutrients into environmentally sensitive regions as well as to capture useful nutrients from the human excreta.

As compost toilets allow reduced water usage, many piping and storage impacts could be effectively minimized or eliminated. Besides, sewage elimination would reduce the flow of nutrients into rivers and oceans leading to subsequent rejuvenation of various marine systems. ^[4]

Plastic Packaging

Almost all toilet cleaning products are packaged using bio-degradable plastics, which contribute significantly to the global environmental pollution. ^[5]

Greener Toilet Products

Several earth-friendly toilet cleaners such as citric or acidic acids, which by acting on the bad bacteria well within the immediate toilet area and quickly losing their potency, would prevent any damage to good bacteria or other organisms in the toilet system.

Moreover, unlike heavy duty chemicals, most ingredients in the greener cleaning products are made from various recycled materials. ^[6]

References

1. ↑ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet
2. ↑ http://www.greenlivingtips.com/articles/124/1/Toilet-chemicals-and-the-environment.html
3. ↑ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composting_toilet
4. ↑ http://www.compostingtoilet.org/faq/index.php
5. ↑ http://www.greenlivingtips.com/articles/124/1/Toilet-chemicals-and-the-environment.html
6. ↑ http://www.greenlivingtips.com/articles/124/1/Toilet-chemicals-and-the-environment.html