Full or half ... a toilet flushing dilemma!

Daily dilemmas confound me.

I'll spare you the details but we've had a blocked loo. After trying to fix it, and failing, I called in the plumber.  While he was here I popped the question - full flush, half flush or not flush at all? What is best for the environment, sewers and my own pee-ce of mind (that is the first and last lavatory joke I am going to do I promise).

My confusion comes from recent stories about sewer pipes needing a certain amount of water flushed through them to make them function efficiently and avoid blockages.

Here was his answer ... just incase you are rendered inactive with indecision each time you go to flush?

With new and improved toilet design we are now flushing much less water down the loo which is a good thing – considering we live on the driest inhabited continent on earth. An old one button toilet uses up to 15L each flush but new dual-flush water-saving toilets can use as little as 4.5L full flush and 3L half flush to do the same job.

Flushing the toilet doesn’t just clear the bowl. It’s designed to set your excrement on a fast and exciting journey to the sewer. If there isn’t enough force it makes it tricky for it to get a good start on its journey and may cause a blockage a bit further down the pipe.

The old adage ‘when it’s yellow let it mellow but when it’s brown flush it down’ is a good water saving principle in theory but might not be the best thing now we have water saving toilets. Some of you will agree it was never a good idea! It all depends on how much paper you use, and how many people you have to share the toilet with! Apart from the smell, the force behind the flush force mightn’t be enough to set everything on its way resulting in a blocked toilet.

Green Plumbers recommend using the half-flush option each time you visit the loo to keep the system in motion and to save water in other ways, as you no doubt do already.

You could also wait for the next Aussie invention called DrainWaves – a system which collects and uses some of your household grey water to flush the sewers or plant a lemon tree and water it personally every day.