[Theodores]

Sorry to sound 'negative', but...

I don't know if this is the way the future is going to pan out - water is an increasingly scarce resource and, as it is, we waste a gallon or so of water to lift one's leavings up and over the u-bend.

Of all people Bill Gates is probably the expert on what toilets will really be like in the future, allegedly water, toilets, sanitation and health is something he is most interested in.

Personally, although I am not into 'standing desks' I am into 'standing toilets', as in the humble urinal. One's aim is easier and there is no seat to remember to put down for the next user. Less water is wasted. I would want one at home so as to avoid 'female complaints' regarding the state of things. Ideally the outflow from the adjacent sink would keep it clean so water wastage really would be minimal. It would be in a room of its own, a very small room with no need for anyone female to ever enter it.

I recently replaced an extractor fan in a bathroom. I thought that a quiet fan would be preferable and I was disappointed with the noise made. However, then I realised the real purpose of the fan, it is to make noise to disguise the sound of one leaving one's leavings. I believe that the Japanese toilets have some of this functionality too. Can anyone confirm that?

[Taylorious]

I suppose it depends on where you live. If you live in Arizona it might end up being an issue due to the energy cost of processing the water for reuse. However, if you live in Chicago you aren't going to have a shortage of water anytime soon.

I don't really get these water shortage scares people talk about. I can see how it is an issue in remote/poor areas around the world, but a country like the US has nothing to worry about. If fresh water reserves get low we can always desalinate seawater. There are engineering challenges and energy costs to do that, but both are solvable issues. No one is going to die from thirst.

[kissickas]

I think a large part of the problem is that it's a "tragedy of the commons" situation. We won't see a huge investment in better recycling and desalinization until it's absolutely required, which would mean that we've already destroyed some aquifers permanently, in some places causing entire aquifers to become unrecoverable [0].

No one is going to die from thirst? Maybe. But a lot of the water loss is in the food-producing middle of the country. People are already starving in the US, and increased food prices will only exacerbate the situation. [1]

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquifer#Subsidence (sections subsidence, saltwater intrusion, and salination)

[1] https://water.usgs.gov/edu/gwdepletion.html

[rainedin]

I guess if you have your liquid waste contained within closed loop then you can get around drought issues.

Making black water potable I'd guess uses more energy and resources than recycling grey. I bet a victorian sewage system couldn't work without gallons of water either. An alternative might be to defacate in our gardens if we have them.

Piss by itself isn't that harmful, you can use it on the garden. I piss frequently into a watering can.

[AustinGrandt]

A lot of the Japanese toilets have water saving mechanisms where the water that fills the toilet is used for a small sink on the top of the toilet to wash your hands.

I agree that there are more ways that we should be conserving water, and we are beginning to see more toilets with a small or large flush function (which almost all Japanese toilets have as well).

As for your question about the noise function in Japanese toilets, fancy bathrooms sometimes have a noise function to cover up the noise of using the bathroom. Most normally it is a recording of a toilet flushing, but some other more "luxurious" ones have little jingles that play when you hit a button.