Bathroom is the most private area in any of the abode where you can rejuvenate the body, mind, and soul after a long day of work. However, in today’s housing design, this area is often ignored and people do not care much about the bathroom. If some time is given to the activity, you can make your bathroom a greener, eco-friendly one. This article is an attempt to presenting some ideas to turn your bathroom into an environment friendly space.
1. Flooring
While considering flooring, many owners still prefer ceramic tiles. However, ceramic tiles are not good as they are often exposed to water and are damaged from moisture easily. Besides during the manufacturing process of ceramic tiles, many harmful chemicals are used which are not good for environment as well as for the bathroom. Therefore, for flooring, it is best to use recycled glass tiles. They provide a translucent surface with a depth more than the ceramic tiles. They are also impervious to water, which makes them idle for flooring.
2. Bathroom cabinets and shelves
Bathroom cabinets and shelves are very essential in these days for storing toiletries, towels and other necessary equipments. Often people use wooden cabinets and shelves. Wooden cabinets and shelves give aesthetic look but they are not good for a bathroom. Over the time, wooden cabinets and shelves start to decay and damage the environment and flooring. Fungus starts growing on the damaged part. To prevent this, one should consider wheat board cabinets. They are made from wheat straw and non-toxic binder. You may also consider supportive harvested wood for cabinets and bamboo for shelves, as they are much more durable than normal wood.
3. Bathtubs and sinks
You should use recycled material such as Vetrazzo for sinks and bathtubs. It is a man made material made of 85-percent recycled glass and 15 percent cement. It does not decay over the time and is available in many colors and designs. You should install a water aerator in the sink, which will reduce the water consumption to half.
4. Lighting
Proper lighting changes the mood of a bathroom. To save energy in the daytime, you should use skylight. By using a skylight, you can get light as bright as day light inside the bathroom. In addition, if the owner chooses to install a solar panel based skylight, then it can give bright light in the evening also. This way, the bathroom can be lit with bright light throughout the day and evening using solar power.
5. Shower
To save water while using showers, you can use low-flow showerhead. This way, you can save both money and water. A normal conventional shower uses 6 gallons water per minute. However, a low-flow showerhead uses only 2 gallons water per minute. This means a saving of 4 gallons water per minute.
6. Low flush toilet
Every day we use almost 30 percent of water in our toilets. Over 17 percent of this water is flushed away from toilets. User can prevent this by installing ultra low-flush toilets. These toilets use around one gallon water to clean the waste. This type of toilets may clog over time, so user has to clean them regularly. By using these types of toilets, user can save up to 9000 gallon water every year. Another option is to use pressure-assisted toilet. Pressure assisted toilets use compressed air along with small amount of water to clean the waste.
7. Shower curtain
Many people prefer to use shower curtains in their bathroom. Most of the curtains are made of vinyl and liners made of PVC and PVC-coated materials. These materials are hard to recycle even on prolong use and spread toxic chemicals to the environment. To prevent this, user should use organic cotton or hemp shower curtain.
8. Cleaners
It is best not to use any type of air cleaners as they contain chemical products that do not vaporize properly and on longer use, they create toxic environment. To prevent this, it is better to use green cleaners such as Shaklee, Seventh Generation, and Ecover. They are made of natural resources and they do not contain any toxic hazardous chemicals.
8. Fan
You can install an energy efficient fan, which can pull most of the moist air and help you to keep common mould at bay.
