The following is excerpted from Newsweek (Aug. 16, p. 10). I don’t know why, but I found this equal parts fascinating and funny.
Americans are used to ordering things ranging from french fries to popcorn in small, medium or supersize. Now those same decision-making skills may become useful in the bathroom, thanks to an innovative plumbing technology: dual-flush toilets. The new gizmos are the industry’s latest attempt to help reduce water usage, a movement that hasn’t always gone smoothly. The last big toilet makeover came more than a decade ago, when the U.S. government decreed that new toilets should use just 1.6 gallons of water per flush, down from the 3.5-gallon standard that had ruled the industry for decades. But consumers complained that it often took two or more flushes to clear the bowl; so many people preferred the old toilets that some plumbers imported them illegally from Canada.
The dual-flush toilets, which have been used for years in Australia and parts of Europe, rely on a simple concept to increase efficiency; it takes less water to flush urine than it does to eliminate what the industry euphemistically calls “bulk waste.” So dual-flush toilets incorporate two flush buttons, or a handle that moves in two directions. The “long flush” uses 1.6 gallons; the “short flush” uses as little as half that amount.