from K-QED.

Pop quiz time.

Can you guess which item in the average American home uses the most water. That would be our toilets.

Toilets use more water than our washing machines, dishwashers, shower heads, or kitchen faucets.

Despite that, they are actually the unsung heroes of water conservation.

Let me explain.

If you flushed a toilet back before the 1980s,

it would have used six to eight gallons of water her flush.

Whoo that's a lot. In the 1990s the federal government set new water use standards

for all sorts of fixtures in our homes. For toilets, no more than 1.6 gallons

per flush. That's roughly a quarter of the water from before.

Then in 2016, California turns the screw just a little bit tighter, so now our

toilets here use even less by about a third of a gallon.

The emphasis on low flow fixtures made a huge difference across America. Indoor water use dropped 22% between 1999 and 2016, one study found.

And it's thanks in large part to millions and millions of low low flow toilets.

So the next time you're sitting on that pearly throne,

appreciate what your toilet has done for us all.

We are into our fourth installment of the State of Drought series here on Bay Curious,

and we've gotten to my favorite part. Solutions. We're going to start by

looking at what we as individuals can do to conserve water.

Then in episodes airing later this week, we'll explore ideas for our community and our state.

Let's get going. I'm Olivia Allen Price. Support for Bay Curious

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