[skateari]

all I know is Im not peeing in my sink until SHTF, thats for sure!.. I mean I wash my face in it and all.. I think ill save that one for later

[BorneoRagnarok]

Why don't you just put bricks inside the toilet tank or use a small cup to wash your teeth ? Here in Malaysia, we are not as rich as you people. So we just put bricks inside the toilet tank if there any such modern toilets around to conserve water.

By the way, there are too much water here for irrigation. Almost unlimited , the river here flow non-stop 24 hours a day. It is just the clean water treatment system that are problematic. It used up expensive resources and chemicals. Yes, our currency is 4 times smaller.

Accrding to the person in charge of water treatment plant , if the supply of diesel run out at the water intake location then the whole system will collapsed. After that..... it is point of no return..

No water for toilet or anything else.

[MonteQuest]

How about no water use to flush your toilet? Here's is a company that I discovered 30 years ago. You have to think outside the bowl(box).

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'C')LIVUS MULTRUM, INC. was founded in 1973 to develop the Clivus Composting Toilet. The Clivus system, invented in Sweden in 1939, is a healthier alternative than the flush toilet. Conventional waste treatment systems create pollution by their design. For instance, the leach field of the septic system puts nutrients into soil at a level too deep for plants to use. Eventually, these nutrients reach groundwater, rivers, lakes, etc., where they have damaging effects on aquatic environments and on drinking water. The sewage treatment plant creates pollution with both of its end products.

First, the effluent (i.e., the liquids, including the water that carries matter to the sewage treatment plant) is discharged into rivers, bays, and oceans. Since it contains plant nutrients, among other things, it, too, ruins aquatic environments. The second product of the sewage treatment plant—sludge—contains thousands of substances, including heavy metals, dioxin, and PCBs that make it toxic. In spite of its toxicity, sludge is widely used as fertilizer.

Alternatively, the composting toilet allows the nutrients in human excreta to be captured and readied for use again as fertilizers—instead of mixing them with water or toxic industrial chemicals. The composting toilet makes it unnecessary to pollute water and soil, or to use clean water to flush toilets.

For more than 30 years, Clivus Multrum, Inc. has provided environmentally sound waste treatment solutions in North America and beyond. In many remote areas, Clivus systems are less expensive than conventional waste treatment systems. In all instances, Clivus composting toilets and greywater systems eliminate pollution and protect natural resources. Clivus offers a range of services to ensure that its technologies will be properly designed, installed and maintained. Clivus clients include federal, state/provincial, and local governments as well as commercial and residential customers. Clivus Multrum is a member of the US Green Building Council.

[kevin]

Good point on the composter, Monte.

We've been using one for a year now, made by SunMar. It uses about a pint of water per flush. All the solids are removed on a weekly basis, and put in the compost pile outside. After about six months of cooking, along with the kitchen scraps, the compost is ready for the trees and the garden.
There are models available that use no water. A five gallon bucket and some sawdust, wood chips and peat moss works great too.

Us "civilized" westerners have such a narrow perspective of the way things should be sometimes. Factoid- if the entire world used flush toilets, there isn't enough fresh water available for one flush.

Suggested reading:
The Humanure Handbook by Joseph jenkins

[gg3]

Most people do not have the brains or skills to operate a composting toilet system safely. Plain and simple.

And, uban residents have nowhere to put the compost, so cities would have to establish regular collection services.

IMHO, the alternative of not flushing #1 at all is disgusting.
"If it's yellow, let it smell, oh!" No thanks. Water for drinking, cooking, and sanitation (washing & toilets) comes before water for lawns and other ornamental. decorative, or recreational uses.

The only solution that's any good for cities is graywater recycling. All the water from tubs/showers and laundry, goes through a filter, into a tank, and is pumped back up to a tank on the roof, which gravity feeds another supply line going to the toilet flush tanks.

This will cut fresh water usage by 100% of the amount used to flush the toilets, which is equivalent to not flushing at all. The infrastructure is no more complicated than any other common infrastructure in apartment buildings, e.g. central boilers for steam heat, etc. Should be required by law in all new construction, including single family homes. If people bitch about the cost, they can give up their big-screen TVs or stick their thumbs up their arses so they don't have to poop.

[Booger]

Haven't seen too much discussion here on this topic. Actually I'm too lazy to use the search function. I'm probably one of the few optimists on this board and see Peak Oil and the inevitable crisis as not a civilization destroyer but changer. Unfortunately I think the future of fresh water is much grimmer. Comments?

[Jack]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Booger', 'H')aven't seen too much discussion here on this topic. Actually I'm too lazy to use the search function. I'm probably one of the few optimists on this board and see Peak Oil and the inevitable crisis as not a civilization destroyer but changer. Unfortunately I think the future of fresh water is much grimmer. Comments?

[Booger]

A die-off of two thirds of the population has not happened at any point in recorded history to the world as a whole, and probably has not occurred since humans were solely in Africa. And of course they rebounded. On a strictly probabilistic standpoint, using past experience as a foundation, the odds of an enormous die off are slim at best to be kind. Thus peak fresh water is a real harm, unlike petroleum, there are no alternatives.

[dduck]

Booger posts that a large-scale die-off of the human population is not likely because it has never happened before. I would assert that:
1. Probability theory does not apply here.
2. Putting a thousand fish in a pond which can support only 300 will most assuredly result in a large-scale (from the fishes point of view) die-off.

[Booger]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dduck', '1'). Probability theory does not apply here.

[backstop]

Sadly the idea that a die-off will usefully ease water shortage has flaws.

a/. During the process increasingly desperate efforts to drain aquifers entirely are at least likely, meaning that recovering the annual inflow would then take a lot of energy to pump it out from greater depths.

b/. That replenishment is already being disrupted by climate turbulence, not only in the migration of rainfall out of tropical regions towards the poles but also by its condensing into more intense rainfall events for shorter periods, meaning that less sinks into the ground. (Southern Italy has just had 4 X the month's average in one day). This runoff is exacerbated by deforestation.

c/. Global warming is melting off the world's glaciers, some of which are the basis of the hydro-cycle over heavily populated areas, such as those on the Himalayas feeding the great rivers serving India, Indchina, and China. This process is again exacerbated by deforestation.

Halting the abuse of water resources and of climatic stability and reversing deforestation are thus IMV utterly requisite parts of any effective responses to peak oil.

[Jack]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('backstop', 'H')alting the abuse of water resources and of climatic stability and reversing deforestation are thus IMV utterly requisite parts of any effective responses to peak oil.

[savethehumans]

I've always wished that they could find a way to harness all the fresh water melting from glaciers, ice shelves, and arctic ice. It would certainly provide a lot of fresh water! And considering what global warming/climate change/water pollution is doing to us (and will continue to do!), a huge supply of water would be a nice idea!

Maybe they think they can continue large-scale irrigation projects around the world from the water vapor coming from the hot air all the politicians and corporate bigwigs are spewing about "nothing to worry about"!

The point about die-off is true, though. Fewer people means less water needs (and definitely less large-scale farming!). If there can be a silver lining around the cloud of die-off, I guess that would be it.

[skiwi]

I can remember talk from 30 years ago or more about towing iceburgs from the Artic and Antartica

Maybe when the oil runs low they'll start converting the tankers to coal fired water tugs

Glad I'm moving to a clean river across the road and bore water from an underground stream that doesn't need treating

[jesus_of_suburbia_old]

I am glad I live next to this thing.
http://compsoc.dur.ac.uk/~pmt/photos/website/chicago/chicago19a.jpg

[gg3]

The most humane thing that could happen (from the perspective of the survivors anyway) would be a flu pandemic that takes out 1/3 of the world's population. This is not impossible, and the World Health Org has lately been all freaked out that Bird Flu could be *it.*

Now the reason I say "most humane," is because death would come quickly compared to starvation, and the impact would be more "fairly" distributed than e.g. a resource/environment scenario, therefore less likely to lead to warfare.

On the other hand we could learn to stop breeding like little mice.

[frankthetank]

I say middle east countries have big problems in the future with water. Some of those countries use oil to desalinate water. When the pumps run dry, what then?

[ararboin]

I've heard there's a distiller in Canada that uses iceberg water in making vodka. I'll drink to that.

[Horace]

We could always do as the pilgrims did and homebrew our drinks.

http://www.homebrew.com


"In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria."

[Freud]

Coca Cola and the major bottling companies have already undertaken the necessary precautions to ensure that we all have clean drinkeable water. For our own best interests of course....
They've been playing the bottled water market for years now and have been cited lobbying in legislations and think tanks for the civic responsibility of it all. Rest assured... we'll all have water.... for a price.