In his Cool Product of the Week article, Alex Wilson has the story on this Baja urinal designed for residential use by the Waterless Company. The no-flush, touch-free toilet retails for $248 and has to potential to save about 3,250 gallons of water per year, assuming a home with two males, three uses, and 340 days, according to Building Green.
Niagara Conservation has developed what it claims is the world’s only 0.8 gallons per flush toilet, the Stealth. The ultra high efficiency toilet — recently profiled as Alex Wilson’s Cool Product of the Week — uses a patented hydraulic technology to deliver a quiet flush with the performance of a pressure-assist toilet. It’s a water saver, too, using approximately 37% less water than a standard high efficiency toilet.
California-based Soil Retention is behind a product, Drivable Grass, that many of you may be interested in. The name is somewhat of a misnomer, because, as you will see below, the infill doesn’t have to be grass. It can be gravel of various kinds, too. Drivable Grass is a flexible product that can be used as a substitute for concrete and asphalt driveways, patios, parking lots, RV pads, boat ramps, and the like.
You’ve probably already seen this toilet and sink combination before. It’s the W+W – short for washbasin and watercloset – from Roca. The product, currently available overseas, reuses waste water from the sink in the discharge of the cistern, which helps it reduce water usage by up to 25% compared to a standard 6/3 liter dual-flush toilet.
Water efficiency is an important measure in green building everywhere, but in Australia — one of the driest countries in the world — water conservation is more widely practiced and water awareness is generally higher than it is in North America. In addition to pioneering water efficiency, Australians have discovered some problems due to the use of efficient, low-flow fixtures. One is the potential problem of "dry drains," however, a new invention called the Drainwave aims to solve the problem.
Recently, Knibb Design let us know about their new endeavor to modularize landscape design with a new site: Knibb Modular Garden. Knibb Modular lets you create a custom residential or commercial garden online in about four steps. When you're done, you'll have an estimated total cost of all the materials, which should be about $12-$16 per square foot. Unless you install the garden yourself, installation will run about $4-$6 extra per square foot. So all in, a modular garden like this will cost about $16-$22 per square foot, sans land preparation costs.
