Blogs & Ecology

When artist Michel de Broin gets home from a hard day's pedalling in his Flinstonemobile, he can relax in style in his converted dumpster....

Photo credit: Getty Images/Peter Dazeley

The bathroom is the room where we begin and end each day, with a variety of cleaning routines designed to help keep us healthy. Odd then, that the room in which we clean our teeth, our skin and the rest of our bodies (not to mention dispose of our waste) is often filled with toxic chemicals, and, even then, not very clean itself. So, how do you stay clean, promote good health, and go green in your bathroom?

Looking for an Eco-Friendly Toilet?
It seems there's a dire need for eco-friendly toilets: around 36 billion rolls of toilet paper are trashed every year—that’s about 15 million trees’ worth. So whatever the reason for America’s longstanding aversion to bidets may be, it’s high time we got over it and stopped wiping (and wasting) and started scrubbing (and saving).

Back when we were tooting our own collective Discovery Communications horn about the launch of the first TV channel dedicated to green living, Planet Green, we gave you a brief glimpse of the new series Stuff Happens. Now that the start of the 13-part series is drawing closer, here’s a bit more about what you’ll be seeing.

Bill Nye Shows Us Where Our Stuff Comes From, And Where It Goes

Nankai Electric Railway has introduced 73 waterless urinals at 18 stations on the Nankai and Koya train lines in Osaka, Japan. The urinals are the first of their kind in Japan and provide savings of around 22,000 metric tons of water and 12.7 metric tons of CO2 a year.

In our quest for efficient water use, this might be the first time we’ve come across a shower that recycles its own water for reuse [we’ve already looked at behavior-related conservation tips, like the navy shower and the selective flush, and we’ve also featured a wide-array of technologies, from

Take two essential household appliances and stick them together, and what do you get? This entry to the Greener Gadgets Design competition: the Washup washing machine-toilet by Sevin Coskun. With a space-saving design that includes graywater recycling, the wall-mounted Washup stores water used in the washer in the toilet, to be reused for flushing. As the washer is located above the toilet, loading can be completed without awkward back bending. Another plus? The Washup's positive message about graywater recycling, which is usually not so visible. via ::