Did you know that most of the bathrooms around the world aren’t exactly green? This is because there are huge amounts of water wasted. Your average toilet will use as much as 30% of the water consumed in the entire house. This and water heaters that need to be powered on all the time to provide warm water will increase your energy bill by a substantial amount. There are though a few tips in order to improve your energy and water consumption and to make your bathroom a bit “greener”.

1. The first thing you should improve in your bathroom is the toilet. Installing a low-flow unit will decrease your water usage by as much as three times! Also, thanks to technology improvement, these type of toilets have now a much more powerful flush even though they use less water. Also, if you still want to use less water there is the possibility to use a two-stage flusher that will let you choose the amount of water (for a normal flush it will use around 0.7 gallons of water while for a solid-waste flush it will use around 1.5 gallons of water).

2. Another bathroom improvement you could easily do is a low-flow shower head. While an usual unit has a flow of around 8 gallons per minute, a low-flow one can use as low as 1.5 gallons a minute without reducing the water pressure. So, a 5 minute shower that used to take up to 40 gallons of water will now use 7.5 gallons. That’s a major improvement that will also decrease water heating costs.

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3.Motion sensor faucets might be a bit expensive at first but I assure you that it is totally worth it. Why? Well, because most of us leave the water running whenever we brush our teeth, wash our face or hands. This kind of faucet can actually reduce the water usage by as much as 60% and you don’t have to do anything but approach the motion sensor with your hand in order to use it. Another advantage is the fact that you don’t need to touch it in order to operate the faucet, so the usual gunk deposits around the faucet handles will be gone!

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4. An improvement that will save you a lot of energy but most people overlook is the lightning in your bathroom. An usual incandescent light bulb will use around 50 watts of electricity per hour. That might seem okay but considering there are now on the market LED light bulbs that use around 2 to 3 watts of power and last ten times longer than a normal bulb there is simply no reason not to change them. There are some people that don’t like the cold light provided by normal LED but thanks to technology improvements you can now buy LED light bulbs with warm light similar to that of a incandescence light bulb.

5. The last improvement that will make your bathroom a bit greener are theproducts you use. These range from hand towels, toilet paper, hand soap or shampoo. All of them can be made from organic products in order to have a much lower impact on the environment after usage. Also, because these are actually made from ingredients usually supplied by farmers, it means that you’re not only helping the environment but you actually help the local economy as well.