Plumbing systems that conserve water and cut costs are gaining traction among homeowners and businesses. Consuming less water and paying less for plumbing-related utilities are certainly top-of-mind motivators for many adopting these systems. Yet, why is this plumbing conservation movement picking up speed, old as it may be? One key reason seems to be the awareness, now at an all-time high, of environmental issues. More and more people are looking for diverse ways to lighten their load on the planet, and the plumbing space just happens to offer up some easy, not very thought-intensive, multiple-choice options. Onward and downward through this list of environmentally friendly "plumbing systems" with us, if you will.
Today, eco-conscious plumbing is more an issue of design than of service. Intelligent plumbing systems monitor and manage real-time water usage. They are equipped to handle the plumbing equivalent of big data. Being "smart" is not the same as being "efficient." A "smart" system is a revolutionary step away from traditional thinking. From the point of view of design, a plumbing system should perform the master task of using water—a precious resource—to produce the least amount of waste and, simultaneously, the least amount of work. If it fails to do either of these things, it's not a well-designed plumbing system, an intelligent plumbing system, or, in any sense of the word, a plumbing system that is good for the "eco."
The availability and feasibility of eco-friendly plumbing solutions are, to a large degree, determined by public policy and infrastructure investment. The government can intervene directly, for instance, by establishing efficiency standards and building codes that favor sustainable, next-generation plumbing systems. It can also influence sustainable plumbing indirectly by making sure that water infrastructure is not an obstacle to the kind of advanced plumbing technologies that the next-generation systems employ. In the public sector, there’s also a huge opportunity—in funding and in developing wide public access to the eco-friendly innovations that are plumbing’s next generation. There’s really no way, in fact, to make the next-generation plumbing systems that the sustainable-style bathrooms favor truly ubiquitous without significant public sector involvement, especially at the local level. And with the involvement in plumbing of so many kinds of pipes, the public sector has plumbing in its pocket.
