American Standard Toilets: Let's Set a New Standard

Before we go on to talk about American Standard Toilets, I first have to make the statement that toilets are inefficient, wasteful, and are literally destroying our planet. Most of the the world does not use clean drinking water to flush their toilets, so don't think that our practices regarding the disposal of human waste in North America and Europe as well as other countries infected with this insane system is "normal". According to "Yes!" Magazine (a great magazine on the problems we face and the awesome things being done about them), the United States has the highest water footprint in the world with 655,939 gallons per capita, per year. Yemen has the smallest with 163,523 gallons used per person per year. It's not the size of the couuntry that matters, either, as China has 185,449 gallons per capita per year. Water footprint refers to the water that is directly used by people for their personal needs such as drinking and showering, and also includes water used to grow food and produce energy and products. That equates to a whopping average of 69.3 gallons per day per person in the United States, THE MAJORITY OF WHICH GOES TO FLUSHING TOILETS!!! That's 18.5 GALLONS of water daily for our poop and pee, which equates to the daily amount used by a person in China! Our leaks alone equate to the daily level of water usage in Afghanistan. We in the United States are depleting water supplies, at the same time we pollute them. Lest anyone needs a reminder, we cannot live without water.

There.  Now that I've gotten that off my chest, let's talk about American Standard Toilets.

The American Standard company has been around since 1872, according to their website.  In addition to the American Standard toilet, which actually features many different models, American Standard makes sinks, faucets and other toilet fixtures.  If I am as anti-toilet as the introduction of this article would make it seem, why am I writing about toilets?  Because I am a practical person and realize that most people simply aren't going to be switching to composting toilets next week.  Getting used to the wasteful perversion of using a flush toilet didn't take long, but people are slow to realize just how bad our flushing practices are for the planet.  And some people don't really care that much, it seems they have more pressing concerns than the fact that we could possibly run out of drinking water! 
But I digress.  I am writing this guide to urge consumers, meaning people, to switch to composting toilets.  With the realization that most people are not going to do so in the foreseeable future, I'm urging them to take the more realistic action of switching to low flow toilets.  And even before you do that, consider the excellent "If it's yellow, let it mellow; if it's brown, flush it down" axiom which we use at home.  This practice saves several flushes each day, and is going to be in use until we have a place of our own to set up a composting toilet in (imagine leaving behind a big pile of your feces in the yard after moving on from a rental property).  Another water saving strategy is to use grey water (all household water excluding toilet water) to flush toilets.  This will require changes in the plumbing of most homes, so you'll want to consult with a greywater expert or books that show you how to do it yourself. 
If you are able to go with a low flow toilet, American Standard would be a good choice as their products are of high quality and they make HET (High Efficiency Toilets) that are an improvement on those low flow toilets that didn't do too well in flushing um… bigger "things". 
For businesses looking to get LEED certification (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), American Standard toilets can help to get you water credits to have your business designated as a "green" business. 
Many American Standard toilets also feature the Watersense label, which was developed by the EPA to indicate products that are certified to meet rigorous performance and efficiency criteria as tested by independent laboratories.  So even though these aren't composting toilets, they do quite a bit better than standard toilets that use up to 1.6 gallons per flush, the legal limit.
American Standard toilet parts are easy to find and available for purchase, so you don't have to replace your toilet if the seat breaks.  Actually, you might be able to use American Standard toilet seats on composting toilets that you build yourself, as they are so readily available.    Just build your own substitution for the American Standard toilet tank and bowl, and you can put the seat on top, hey presto!    

This article wasn't written, however, to promote American Standard Products.  It is my hope that consumers, more appropriately called people (that means you!), will contact the company to indicate their desire to see a mass produced composting toilet that could be as popular as "normal" toilets in ease of use and popularity.  Because ideally, we should be using zero water, or perhaps just collected rainwater, to handle our wastes.  Low-flow toilets are merely a substitution in what has to be a transition phase to waterless toilets.