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New, slippery toilet coating provides cleaner flushing, saves water
- glofish 7y agoUnpopular opinion warning! Getting people to save water is one of the simplest things in the world! Water is the cheapest material that people have access to. It is so cheap it has been devalued to the extreme. Fill a backyard pool? That'll be less than $100... Raise the price a little bit, all of a sudden people will use less water, they won't even notice any effect and have the same quality of life. Framing a scientific breakthrough as "saving money on water" is ridiculous. We already have a simple solution that works.
- ARandomerDude 7y ago> people will use less water, they won't even notice any effect These are mutually exclusive statements in this context.
- glofish 7y ago"any effect on their quality of life" - what I meant ... now does being motivated to fix a leaky toilet that otherwise you wouldn't have bothered to do count as a quality of life decrease?
- sfsafs 7y agoHow many people have leaky toilette that they can easily fix to lower the impact of higher fees? vs. How many people are living on the margins and that extra $10 represents the last meal to get to the end of the month?
- glofish 7y agoYou are derailing the discussion - we were talking about the practicality of covering toilets with a slick substance while touting the water-saving potential of said act. To which I stated that instead of covering the toilet with that slick substance we'd save more if we made water a little more costly to dissuade people from wasting water on a large scale. Now all of a sudden that got turned into some poor family in an undisclosed location not being able to feed themselves because water is too expensive ... quite the logical hyperjump ...
- sfsafs 7y agoNo, you dismissed a techno-industrial solution by proposing to raise water prices instead. I happen to agree that techno-industrial solutions are band-aids best addressed with social and self-growth. However, your proposed method of social change is more complicated that you let on. People on the margins are not some hypothetical "poor family in an undisclosed location not being able to feed themselves because water is too expensive" They are literally the set of marginal individuals, marginal as defined in Econ 201 (marginal rates, marginal profits ect). That is people who are not so poor that they are already skipping meals (or on food stamps), but they cannot save an extra $10/month either. At the end of the month the net change in their net value is zero. If we expand the set to include people and families who are in the red or in the black by about $50/month, that includes millions of Americans. And, for these people, $10/month of added water bills hurts. A lot. That's not to say raising prices is a bad idea. I happen to agree with it. I also happen to agree with raising gas taxes, levying road tolls, and, in general, attaching the externality cost to the first user as much as possible (I.e. the gas tax to transport the tomato you eat is paid by the shipping company whose job it is to find economic ways to ship). However, I'm under no delusions that this tax scheme is regressive. Should the repressiveness be addressed or dismissed is another question.
- dsfyu404ed 7y agoAs a general rule for necessities, if you want it to be cheap enough for the poor to be able to comfortably use what they need it has to be cheap enough for the rich to waste it. For water specifically, Private use is a drop in the bucket compared to commercial and agricultural use.
- throwaway5752 7y agoWater should be cheap, it's less expensive overall that society dealing with poor water sources (healthcare, developmental). There should be a two tier price system. Cheap up to a threshold, then expensive beyond that, like with mobile internet. And even then, tech to reduce waste is great and should be celebrated and is not mutually exclusive.
- glofish 7y agoI think saying here is toilet where your poop does not smear is a much better slogan.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- tenebrisalietum 7y ago> Water is the cheapest material that people have access to. You don't live in the American South. I actually suspect you live near one of the Great Lakes where the water is dirt cheap. My water bill is higher than my Internet bill.
- war1025 7y agoSomething I have wondered a couple times when this comes up: When people say "Water bill", do they mean solely water, or water + sewer? Where I live, the two are bundled, and the total bill is also higher than our internet bill. (~$100 for water vs $75 for internet) I live in Iowa, which doesn't have Great Lakes levels of water lying around, but we also have no shortage of the stuff.
- JoshTriplett 7y agoYes, they're often combined, on the basis that it's easier to measure water usage than sewer usage and the latter is presumed to be proportional to the former.
- war1025 7y agoSo when people say "my water bill is higher than $X", do they mean the combined bill? Does the town I live in just have abnormally high water prices for an area without water scarcity, or is water just artificially cheap in other places?
- stevehawk 7y agoRegarding the former - Yes. It's basically something like this: line 1 - Water usage = X line 2 - Sewage usage = X * modifier My monthly water usage is usually something like $20 worth, but my "water bill" is usually around $60-$65 when combining water + sewage (2 adults, $ = USD).
- catalogia 7y agoSome people (those who own wells) don't have real "water bills" at all and are actually referring to a portion of their electric bill corresponding to the well pump usage when they say "water bill". (Depending on well depth and usage patterns, this may or may not be a significant portion of the power bill.)
- ping_pong 7y agoIt should be tiered, which it is but not to the degree that it sound. But really the problem is businesses and especially farmers growing non-essential crops, especially in California. The drought we experienced over the last several years was mainly exacerbated by farmers who were growing non-essential but expensive crops like almonds. I would rather the almond farmers go bankrupt than have them spend 1 gallon per almond in water. Businesses should pay more for water, and if it causes inflation in prices, maybe that's okay if the cost of almonds double. The amount of money that Nestle pays to bottle water for free is far too low. If it drives bottled water out of service because the costs are too high, I also think that's okay.
- samatman 7y agoAlmonds are a red herring where California crops are concerned. Around half of California's agricultural water use goes to alfalfa, a fodder crop which may be grown anywhere. Israel uses subsurface drip irrigation to grow almonds, which is more than ten times as efficient as California's flood irrigation system. The problem is not inherent to the crop; it is political, and downstream (pun intended) of California's approach to water rights.
- michaelt 7y ago> The researchers also predict the coating could last for about 500 flushes in a conventional toilet before a reapplication of the lubricant layer is needed. It's a neat idea - especially the fact the bowl remains white, unlike a coating of PTFE or similar. I wonder if it's an idea they can develop further into a permanent coating?
- dwyerm 7y ago...which is strange, since PTFE is naturally white. I think we've become used to seeing it on silver and grey frying pans. But that said, what's wrong with a dark-colored toilet?
- michaelt 7y agoMerely that a coating that retains total choice in colours is more flexible than one that limits the range of colours possible. And presumably that's part of the contribution here - a nonstick toilet that doesn't look like the ones you get on planes and trains already. Also, the current fashion in my country is for white toilets - you go to a bathroom showroom, ~95% of what's on display will be white. A design that doesn't require a change in fashions is simpler than one that needs tastes to change.
- duderific 7y agoIt would get really dirty before you realized it. With a white toilet, it's really obvious when it needs to be cleaned.
- tropo 7y agoAll colors are wrong. So that you can properly see a clog, the toilet must be clear glass.
- pm215 7y agoYeah, 500 flushes is not really very many. I live alone and I reckon I flush the loo at least three times a day, which would mean the coating needed reapplying every six months. If you're a family then it's probably heading down towards every three months. If this spray can be re-applied by the end-user and isn't too expensive that's annoying but just about OK I guess. If it needs a technician visit and/or it's an expensive coating then it's not practical. An order of magnitude more flushes between recoatings would definitely be better...
- ARandomerDude 7y agoReminds me of an old plumbing trick: got a really stuck toilet? Pour a little dish soap into the bowl. It makes everything slippery so dislodging debris is much easier.
- honest_tovarich 7y agoHow satisfying to watch that video....
- tigerlily 7y agoWhat is this stuff made from? I hope they think of the fish, that's all.
- stephenr 7y agoRaw sewage probably isn’t that great for fish either.
- icebraining 7y agoYeah, it may be a concern in terms of extra costs in sewage treatment.
- adrianN 7y agoRaw sewage is well known to decompose in the environment into harmless things. Unlike the majority of chemicals we invented in the last 100 years or so.
- Tharkun 7y agoErrr.....no? Human waste in water is a major cause of disease. Sure, a turd or two won't be a problem. And sure, it'll decompose. But all kinds of pathogens remain. There are billions of people, and as the eponymous book says: everyone poops.
- adrianN 7y agoPeople have been pooping for millions of years without filling our oceans with poop. We have been creating new chemicals for a hundred years and have created a huge waste problem. The last time pooping had a big impact on the global ecosystem was during the Great Oxygenation Event, afaik.
- gpm 7y ago500 flushes is less than a year for a toilet used twice a day (say before and after bed), I hope that coating is cheap, easy to apply, and doesn't create substantial pollution either as it is created or used. I hope the sewer system doesn't need to just add water as a result. Toilet water use doesn't seem like a big enough contributor to the problem that it's much use optimizing it in most places. But there are probably some where water is locally scarce and it makes sense.
- HorizonXP 7y agoI tend to agree, but I (and maybe you) live in the Great Lakes region where water is abundant and cheap. Optimizing water use just doesn't seem worth it. But I can totally see this coating helping in regions like India, who have a real problem with open-air defecation.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- newen 7y ago...so to solve that, you would put this stuff on the ground so that shit slips easily into the nearest river?
- HorizonXP 7y agoI think you're deliberately misrepresenting what I meant. The current PM of India campaigned on a "Clean India" effort to tackle open-air defecation by building millions of toilets. Now, you can argue the efficacy of this effort, but arguably, the entire scheme requires adequate means to actually flush the toilets, which requires water, which requires infrastructure. All I meant is that efforts to minimize the amount of water required (i.e. the coating in the article) could be helpful here. Another place where this can be helpful is in areas that aren't covered by sewage infrastructures, like houses that are on septic tanks, or campgrounds/parks with outhouses. I'm not an expert on this matter, I'm just suggesting that I can see how it might be helpful.
- birgitt 7y agoHi Everyone! Birgitt here from spotLESS Materials -- we are commercializing this technology and some of the authors of the Nature Sustainability paper are part of our team. I'll try answering some of the questions I'm seeing. Would love to hear your feedback! Check out our products at: https://www.spotlessmaterials.com/shop https://www.spotlessmaterials.com/shop Check out the full research article here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-019-0421-0#citeas https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-019-0421-0#citeas Edit: Let me answer a few of the common questions here: 1. Is it easy to apply? We designed our coatings to be applied in minutes with just a spray bottle and a paper towel/cloth. 2. Regarding durability: Our coating consists of two parts - the first part is the formation of a nanohair layer, which is permanently bonded to a substrate (e.g., toilet surface or glass). This layer itself is very liquid-repellent and sludge-repellent and does not require replenishment as it is permanently attached onto the underlying substrate. The second part is the lubricant, which is infused into the nanohair layer (like a nanoscale sponge absorbing the lubricant). The combination of the lubricant and the nanohair make LESS coating super slippery against liquid and sludge-like substances. The lubricant layer will wear off over time depending on the frequency of use. For typical use in a toilet environment, the lubricant will need to be replenished after ~500 toilet flushes and can be reapplied by a simple spray process. 3. Regarding the environmental friendliness of our coatings: Our product is based on silicone. It has been shown in the scientific literature that silicone can be decomposed naturally in soil within 4-7 days. It breaks down in silica, water, and carbon dioxide. Ref.: Graiver, D., Farminer, K. & Narayan, R. A review of the fate and effects of silicones in the environment. J. Polym. Environ. 11, 129–136 (2003).
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- option_greek 7y agoAwesome product and its good to see that price is kept affordable. Many comments here don't seem to appreciate the use case (public toilets) in places with high footfalls and high density (basically every public place in India).
- dheera 7y agoIs this similar to LiquiGlide? https://www.fastcompany.com/1679878/mits-freaky-non-stick-coating-keeps-ketchup-flowing https://www.fastcompany.com/1679878/mits-freaky-non-stick-co... If not, what are the pros and cons of using LiquiGlide in a toilet vs. yours?
- hanniabu 7y agoWhy don't we use grey water to flush toilets? It can use water either from the bathroom sink or shower.
- Scoundreller 7y agoI understand Hong Kong uses seawater to flush toilets. The chlorination process is simple: just pass some current through the salt and voila, chlorine.
- TeMPOraL 7y agoHonestly, I do. I've placed a bucket in the sink to capture waste water from washing hands, which is then reused for flushing the toilet after depositing... liquid contents in it. It saves a bit off the water bill and also made me realize just how much water I use up when washing hands... Of course I hide the bucket when guests come, it's too weird a thing - but in all honesty, I've wished many times for a system for capturing sink & shower water in a tank, for use in toilet. The standard practice is inefficient. EDIT: I didn't know the term "greywater" before, and after reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greywater https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greywater I'm having second thoughts about my scheme. If the city is actually treating greywater and water from toilets separately, then I guess it makes sense to let the sink water drain. But then again, that's a huge if. I'll need to take a closer look at my indoor plumbing and read up on the water treatment scheme in my area.
- toast0 7y agoAs of now, very few buildings have separate grey and black water plumbing. In the event that you did have separate plumbing in the building, you would need separate plumbing in the street as well. Unless you live in a very water constrained area, it's pretty unlikely. In the US, plumbing for reclaimed water is available in some areas (purple pipes), and seems like an easier intervention, it's often used for landscape irrigation, which has easily accessible plumbing to retrofit. It can be used for toilet flushing as well, if that is plumbed separately from other fixtures in the building.
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- papreclip 7y agoMore chemical waste in our water system. There's nothing wrong with the amount of water we currently use to flush our toilets. Now, there's something to be said for a cleaner flush, but another solution to that problem - with many other benefits - is to consume more fiber
- catalogia 7y ago> "There's nothing wrong with the amount of water we currently use to flush our toilets." That depends entirely on where you live. Depending on the local situation, you might have almost no fresh water, way too much fresh water, or just the right amount of it. In these sort of conversations people often seem to forget that their local conditions are not universal.
- rswail 7y agoThe US toilet design with the huge bowl of water is incredibly wasteful and inefficient and just not that good, compared to toilets in EU/AU/JP.
- haklriueo 7y ago> When we put that coating on a toilet in the lab and dump synthetic fecal matter on it This reminds me of a documentary about toilets, and one factoid was that American toilets were much worse at flushing than Japanese ones, and would block more frequently, and it turns out that American ones were tested with a small standardized rubber ball, while Japanese ones with the real deal, including big productions.
- safepants 7y agoI watched a video from This Old House where they toured a toilet factory. They used Miso paste in a condom to simulate fecal matter.
- bch 7y agoIt’s interesting! https://youtu.be/MhuIOwdWuDk https://youtu.be/MhuIOwdWuDk
- TheRealWatson 7y ago"7 links of miso"... I remember that every time I buy sausage links. Gross haha.
- trynewideas 7y agoI cannot wait — I cannot, cannot wait — for my cat to _finally_ fall in
- TheHypnotist 7y agoI've got a wheel of cheese with my name on it.
- toomuchtodo 7y ago@birgitt: Instead of a labor intensive process of spraying and paper or cloth, could you not include the lubricant in a separate reservoir and apply a bit with each flush, avoiding the need for a manual process? Or perhaps have an automatic cycle where the bowl drains, the lubricant is applied, and then water is supplied to refill the bowl after a period of time has elapsed (if necessary)? It seems manual application is likely to slow adoption IMHO. If automated, seems like a slam dunk for heavy use/commercial/public applications though.
- cellular 7y agoOr just float a thin layer on top of the water that will encapsulate ...ahem...the capsule.
- ghostbrainalpha 7y agoManual application is gross, but adoption could be quick if it is focused on companies that use janitorial services... Honestly how many Hacker News readers read this story and thought about ordering the product and having their weekly cleaning person be in charge of applying this even monthly in their homes?
- mkonecny 7y agoAre we sure this is not a step backwards? We woild benuaing.less water, but filling our lakes with lubricant?
- sfsafs 7y agoFrom a comment above from the developer, it seems this stuff (particularly the second coating) is akin to hair conditioner.
- jobseeker990 7y agoWhy not other applications? Boat hulls, water slides, dishes, cookware?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- basicplus2 7y agoI find a toilet brush works just fine.. Less water in the sewer is only going to create problems for the flow rates further down the line, Possibly blockages in the pipe on your property. and i would prefer not to put silicone (if that is what they are using as it is "like hair conditioner") as some silicones can take 400 to 500 years to break down
- Pamar 7y agoI came here just to say that - if memory serves - this was mentioned in The Mote in God's Eye by Niven & Pournelle: humans have contacted an alien race, and the aliens suggest some improvements to the human technology on display on the spaceship. Among these, a "frictionless material" which one of the human engineers points out "will save lots of water on arid planets and also on the spaceships themselves". (During the exchange with the aliens who live there, one
- aaron695 7y agoSince it seems like HN are just Luddites afraid of something new or don't understand the product, lets spell it out. Cleaning a toilet sucks, this product will sell well if it works as claims and makes it easier. They will get $, you will not. Cleaning public buildings is a huge cost that takes manual labour, if this product has a good price point and works as they say, it will save $100 of millions yearly. No one in the real world actually cares about saving water in the home and being afraid of new things is boring. The only question is "The researchers also predict the coating could last for about 500 flushes " In the past the issue stopping these products being everywhere has been the fact they wear out quickly when abraised.
- thomasjudge 7y agoIt seems like there was something similar a few years back that got a lot of press as solving the ketchup-adhering-to-the-bottle-problem https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-39030055 https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-39030055
- lazyjones 7y agoLarge, old cities already have problems with their waste canals clogging because modern toilets and showers use too little water. I wonder how this can be solved in the future, perhaps by coating the canal as well?
- new2628 7y agoSurprisingly, at the same time they often outlaw channeling rainwater (coming down from the roof) into the wastewater system, although that seems to be a solution to several problems at once.
- lazyjones 7y agoRainwater often causes the opposite extreme with the same result, i.e. canals overflowing with water (rain = a lot of water in a very short time), which means they're blocked too.
- ttul 7y agoQuick link to the order form: https://www.spotlessmaterials.com/store/p14/Coating_Kits.html https://www.spotlessmaterials.com/store/p14/Coating_Kits.htm...
- iamtheworstdev 7y agoAll of the money people save on their water bill can now be put aside for their annual call to the plumber as you'll likely end up clogging your pipes. Not enough water in every flush means you'll end up with a blockage at some point because the feces was never irrigated out of your pipes to the street.
- RenRav 7y agoThis kind of thing seems a hassle to do manually. As a feature on a smart toilet though...
- dehrmann 7y agoHaven't airplane toilets been doing this for a long time?
- Jaruzel 7y agoPSA: Do NOT put this stuff on the toilet seat.
- aitchnyu 7y agoAre there existing examples of commercial (ahem) goophobic coatings?
- vfinn 7y agoThere are solutions that help you save water by requiring you to flush only when taking a dump (by preventing pee from smelling and hiding it). I don't remember the exact products.