Four Cities Are Screwing Themselves Over By Not Using Rainwater in Toilets

Four cities could exclusively use rainwater to flush their pot . But by demanding drinkable water to be pumped to their houses , just so they can poop in it and throw it back out , they are burdening their infrastructure in two unlike way .

A fresh study , done by environmental locomotive engineer at Drexel University and bring out in Resources , Conservation , and Recycling , has let out that four different American city could boost their residents ’ finances and decoct problems with their infrastructure , if they took measure to verify that toilets used rain water and not potable water .

The inspiration for the study came from the uncheerful realization that the major drain on the public water provision from private households is not shower or lawn maintenance , but toilets . If people found an alternative to flushing , they could bring down their private use of piss by one third .

Argentina’s President Javier Milei (left) and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., holding a chainsaw in a photo posted to Kennedy’s X account on May 27. 2025.

Since outhouses and night ground gentleman’s gentleman are n’t get along back into style anytime soon , the researchers came with another way to reduce drinkable water supply use . In four cities — New York City , Philadelphia , Chicago , and Seattle — just the rain weewee that fall on residential roofs could provide those residences with enough water supply to level their toilets to their hearts cognitive content .

plain , some households would benefit more than others . Large flat buildings would have more of a problem accumulate enough water than suburban family homes would . And there is the stumbling mental block of space and disbursal . Most masses are n’t eager to keep a adult storage container of rain weewee for keep their toilet flush . Still , even a diverted pelting spout would veer down a family ’s pee vizor .

Flushing with rainwater water would also reduce the burden on the public bag — and not just because it reduces the amount of weewee run to houses . A forest absorbs more pelting than a city does , which is one of the reason tempest drains and public weewee cleaning facilities overflow when a city gets a vast amount of rainwater . If that rain were channeled into storage containers in houses , there would be fewer times when untreated waste waste water got dumped into local water supplies , less money spend on water treatment , and a band fewer giant mutant pool blocking off intersection .

William Duplessie