Water shortage & toilets

Some of the toilets on the continent seem more efficient.

Do they use water at pressure?

The majority of the ones in Europe have an inherent design weakness in them...

In the UK most toilet cisterns operate on the siphoning principal, i.e. a lever lifts the water level above the down pipe and causes the water to siphon to the bowl.

In most of the European ones they employ a valve of some sort, I haven't inspected one so I can't say what type of valve is used. But this valve has to close and seal against water leakage, so it has to have a washer which degrades with time and causes water loss.

The siphoning system doesn't need a seal as the water is separated from the down pipe by the level.

Of course both need seals on the water inlet and perhaps this is one of the biggest causes of water loss?

John.

What I want to know is why we can't use the 'grey' water that would normally be emptied down the sewer?

Such as washing up water or water from the hand basin, washing machine etc...

I'm sure a simple filtration and storage device could be used to fill the toilet cistern up with, so water wastage is reduced at a stroke!!

John.

Hi Electroman. Here in the West Midlands the Sandwell council have built two prototype blocks of flats that have a huge tank in the basement for so-called grey water. This water is filtered then pumped up to the roof tank with the aid of solar panels to produce the electricity necessary, this water is then used to flush the toilets.

There are solar water heaters on the roof that provide the domestic hot water, in times of overcast winter weather there are gas boilers.

If this project is sustainable over 10 years then more will be built. Spencer.

Excellent..this sort of stuff should be compulsory for new builds.

Yes yes ! I'd like to hear more Spencer if you have any links or details. Very cool.

Hi Kris. For more information Google; Sandwell council, then go to Sandwell council house Oldbury. You can contact them and they will give you all the information that you want about this experiment. Give them your full name and address, this will help you greatly. Cheers, Spencer.

Thanks Spencer - the principle here is excellent. I have a big old water tank in the loft ( It must have been put there when the place was built or something, it's huge. Way bigger than the access hatch. I'm slowly considering potential use, such as diverting rainwater to it. Because of the hight, I'd need to collect in a lower tank, and then pump it back up into the attic tank. Other projects are more pressing right now, but I like the idea of using rainwater, and possibly even the grey stuff. I'd have to incorporate a mains water feed somehow, but I'm sure this can be done. As you probably know there's a mass of regulations to take into account, but it would be great to get such a system working. I'm currently doing several different home projects, and unfortunately stuff has to get done 'as and when' rather than in the most logical order. Annoyingly inefficient, but it's fun.

I'd need to collect in a lower tank, ...

maybe something like an old bath? D'oh!

It's soooo annoying. A bit like when you eventually get rid of the 'junk' in your shed that's sat there for years. Next day a use for it will arise ! The bath is however still alive, but it does have a date with the great Armitage in the sky.

This remind me of an article I read several years ago about a building (it may have bene in Germany) built on eco-principles. Used water was made to flow down the walls (outside) which were equipped with various means of purification. Plants were of course a big part of it.

This touches on the subject I've been rying to see a solution to for some time at home. Thinking of reed beds or sand filtration combined with some biological processes in series. Trouble is it's not my field, it is my front garden however.

Del, don't understand your interest here, surely you have the best possible solution. a tray which (someone) empties on to the garden.

Iv'e seen cat's which were trained to use the toilet, and even flush!

Sorry Del, I know how much the idea of 'trained' annoys!

Hi Wrenched. If you have a large back garden there is nothing stopping you from having a reed bed system of filtration. Contact the horticulural society for further iformation on this one, they will help you. Spencer.

Thanks for a good suggestion, I've been into the organic horticultural place at Ryton which is worth a visit, they had some information or leads at least.

Hi Wrenched, Yes it is good isnt it. Try visiting the horticultural scientific test place at Berkhamsted, they can give you loads of information and are only too glad when people ask obout things. Spencer.

Hi Del. These flats are all built in Cedar wood and fully insulated, They are only three story's high. I contacted the council this morning and they said that so far they are more than paying their way, so they are contemplating building another five blocks next year. Spencer.

Hi Scapolie,

Does this council have a web page or an email address where they can be contacted? (Contact via phone would be too expensive as it's an international call)? My wife and I are considering building a 'green' house and I've considered for many years the possibility of recycling grey-water in some way. An example of a working, cost-effective model to go by would be a great start.

Hi europium. I have given the information in one of my last posts, if you have trouble following this then contact me by e-mail and I will sort it out. By the way, why is your code name europium, are you one of the Lanthanides? Spencer.

I agree entirely. The use of fresh potable water NOT make sense for toilets. If grey water is used, not only is fresh water not wasted, but the water exiting the toilet is more concentrated in solids, etc. From a water purification standpoint, I would rather deal with a concentrated source of solids, etc than a dilute source of water for purification as one has less solution to deal with.

If you had a larger sized cistern you could adjust the volume of flushing water by sticking something in it ( light-weight bricks maybe). I recall a product called an 'Elephant Bag' that did the same job. However this only addresses flush volume. Velocity of flush is probably just as important.

Perhaps, above the 'P-trap' (or whatever design you have) somebody could invent a hinged blocking element. By some ingenious method, the thing could hold minimal water prior to flushing. Upon flushing by the usual handle, it could swing down as a higher power jet of water did it's work (have a high level cistern). When the flush had finished the hinged trap could be set to close with just enough time to collect an inch or two of water ( I'm not sure how much you need). As ever, complex designs tend to bring upon a greater failure rate. More components and all that. I very much doubt such a thing as a squeamish public who love Andrex Puppies would but the concept, but it's great all the same.

In the film 'Meet the Fockers' Dustin Hoffman advises "If it's yellow let it mellow, if it's brown flush it down". That's perhaps extreme. Keeping the yellow for garden fertilizer would really put people off.

The idea by John ( I think it was John) to use existing 'old water' is great. I think existing council regs in the UK allow you to tap off half the discharge from rainfall pipes. A bit of pipe work etc could store a fair bit in the UK's weather regime. Alternatively, waste bathwater etc could be pumped back up to a higher level tank. The trick would be to balancing ex-bathwater and toilet usage. With the right throughput, water cleansing may not even be needed ( unless you go OTT on bubble bath).

Did Cistercian monks have anything to do with this ?< sorry, making jokes is a bad habit>

In this country, they pass a law that mandate that the toilets are low water use, problem is one had to flush a number of times to make it work that you used more water that having the older style.

Typical saying applies "We're from the government, and we here to help you"

"but with modern flow simulation software it should be possible (Is there a computer model of a floater?"

LOL, image the programmer that wrote that software.

Hard to simulate that, I not sure but I believe it is Kohler they use Pong Pong Balls as a test bed.

Back to the topic, the pressurized toilet work great. but is rather pricey.

In this country, they pass a law that mandate that the toilets are low water use, problem is one had to flush a number of times to make it work that you used more water that having the older style.

That's a great example of regulations that can be counter productive. To make an extreme example, people are forced to flush 70%, so they do it twice and end up using it more. Some kind of adaptive mechanism might be more useful. Water meters are being rolled out more and more in the UK, so there is a financial incentive ( meters = pay per gallon rather than flat rate). If you've just had a pee, then it doesn't need too much flush. If you've done the other then you might want a bit more flushing power. Existing systems seem to cater for half or full flush, but other factors such as cistern capacity enter into it. Why not have an adjustable mechanism so each householder can adapt. It would need to be simple in operation and involve minimal parts etc. Currently ( OK, I worked it out 1 year ago- one flush costs 1p .There is a joke there - 'to spend a penny', but it's about correct as a cost figure). Multiply that by the number of households etc and it could be significant. Electricity gets used pumping all that water to houses as well, so it does (arguably) have global warming impact.

This can be a tough topic to talk about, but it is quite serious, still can't help joking with it.

your comment;

"( OK, I worked it out 1 year ago-"

uuuhhhmmm, I bet I know where did you worked that out,

Your comment;

"Some kind of adaptive mechanism might be more useful. Water meters are being rolled out more and more in the UK, so there is a financial incentive ( meters = pay per gallon rather than flat rate)."

That is an excellent idea, I hope your doing something with that, maybe a dual cistern. how should I say it, one cistern to do the light work, and for the heavy loads, a larger cistern or possible both cisterns controlled by valving?

I know more valving may complicates things more, but the workings are simple to begin with.

We used to offer dual flushing valve in China market.There are 3L for light and 6L for heavy.And currently we are designing a new one system that can do 1.5L and 3L job.

I'm sure I have seen dual flushing cisterns around, maybe in motorway service areas...

I think you had to hold the handle down for a full flush or for a low flush just depress it once...

John.

Yeh..but it's matching the system to the pan to actually do the job...

c'mon John you understand power matching !

Hey Del, where's that guest who said that as electronic engineers we couldn't talk about or do anything else?

Hmmmmm seems to me toilets and cistern design seems as far from electronics as it gets huh!!

John.

"I think you had to hold the handle down for a full flush "

Theres a term for that that I recently heard, it was called a plumbers flush. But it had nothing to do with a dual cistern, mostly to try to get the low water usage to work

That's good, but is there a pan designed to work with it and actually remove the waste with 3L ????

That's the real question!

Innovations: Dual flush toilet

Australia is the driest inhabited continent in the world and water-saving, particularly in times of drought, is paramount. The South Australian bathroom accessories company Caroma was known for being an innovative company - its founder, Charles Rothauser, developed the first one-piece plastic toilet cistern (the water tank above the toilet bowl) in the late 1950s.

Hi from Western Australia,We are all involved in saving water and the people above are always improving the toilet flush system.check it out.

A couple of links below for you.The last link is of my innovation see what you think.

http://www.samemory.sa.gov.au/site/page.cfm?u=318

http://www.reece.com.au/bathrooms/products/1811890

From Stewie5777

Nice!

Obviously a slightly different set of problems in OZ... (swimming pools in UK are much less common and doubtless less used)

Two things which would be interesting to hear peoples views on.

1 Rainwater (particularly in UK).. if this is harvested, it is actually removing water which would end up in streams rivers etc, some of which are drying out, however it does help to ease the runoff when there are storms...

2 Grey water usage is severely limited by the fact that it goes bad pretty quickly and therefor can't be strored without some sort of treatment.

Discuss in not more than 500 worms.

I thought I already had.Sort of.

Stop whining man and pull youself together! Go sit in a nice hot bath .

Here in New Zealand we've had (mandatory) dual-flush pans for some time. We also have vari-flush (not mandatory though), which flush for as long as you hold down the "button". Dual-flush are generally syphonic (no valves) and variable are valve operated.

We have just completed the HQ for the Department of Conservation in Wellington which uses 100% recycled rainwater for flushing. The advantages are obvious so here are the disadvantages:

1. Cost. Simple: tanks, plumbing, pumps and filters. But don't forget space and weight. Tanks are large and take up lettable floor area. Water is heavy and requires the structure to support it. Hence the DoC tanks are in the basement.

2. Sediment. You wouldn't believe the crud at the bottom of the tanks. This will need to be cleared regularly.

3. Water colour. Unfortunately the water varies from a very "realistic" yellow colour to a "perfect match" light brown. The natural reaction (apart from to leave) is to flush as soon as you see it. Ooops - more water wasted. Signs have been posted to explain the problem.

4. Valve maintenance. The building is new so not yet a problem. However the contaminant in the water will eventually cause valve problems.

5. Odours. This varies depending on rainfall. Only once or twice has it been offensive.

My personal long-term concern is bacteria. It's easy to get at the water in the pans. But there is no way to treat water stagnant in cisterns, pipes and even in the main tank other than treat it with chemicals. This partially defeats the object.

As an environmentalist this is the ideal system. As an engineer it sucks and I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole.

You may use special material or coat on inner surface to keep down bacteria in the pans.

I have had good success using swimming pool ozone generators for maintaining rainwater purity in storage cisterns, storing water for up to five months. This does not solve the problem of sludge collection, but eleminates bacteria and seems to help control mosqitoes as well. I wonder how this would work with grey water storage?

In a previous thread I asked a question about mosquito larvae. This is the only problem with using rainwater to flush toilets. I have been doing this since before the turn of the century. I save a fortune in water rates, before I married I was paying £50 per year on the so-lo rate (that's £50 p.a.). Now it's £120 p.a. I could do a much better job than I have but can't be bothered. When I fitted a dual flush toilet, bought from B&Q just over a year ago I immediately noticed the difference in rainwater consumption. It doubled the time before I had to switch over to drinking water. And to answer the point in the post, it flushes well all the time on short flush (it's all I use). The point is this is so easy it's scary rainwater has no soap, no human grease to go rancid, and no hair. Why bother with grey water? Collect your rainwater, sh*t in it and sell it to your water authority. Your only limitation is storage, if you can store enough to get you through the dry spell you are laughing, I can't quite.

Oh and by the way there is no limescale build up with rainwater (think that's not a problem? ask the person who cleans the toilet).

the alternative is the composting toilet, which uses no water. A guide from CAT (that's in Wales) warns every one wants to build a reed bed or harvest grey water pr build a composting toilet. However (it says) if you already have mains sewerage use it and rainwater. It's the simple solution and it works. trust me.

Excellent..where do you store the rain water? Do you pump it up to a header tank? Any good links...?

I'm on a water meter..I have 3 water butts for garden use. Maybe I could dig a nice sump?

Del

3 ! Bloody hell man, the Sahara isn't that close yet, is it ?

All the rainwater from my roof goes into one of two butts connected at the bottom and top (Wickes 200l (were the cheapest - I paid ~£14 they are now £22) these overflow into a standard 227l (50gal) cold water tank which was free. these are mounted on my alleyway roof making use of dead space. From there I pump up to a standard cold water header tank which gravity feeds to my upstairs toilet. I have a finished but unfitted control circuit consisting of effectively two float switches which toggle an SR flip flop which drives a semiconductor relay to switch a transformer to give 12V to drive a boat bilge pump which does that job magnificently. (for about 3 years I used a timer switching the pump for 3 mins per session 4 sessions a day). that failed recently so I've been using a clockwork timer on demand, I really must fit that circuit. also on the ground I have one of those blue chemical tanks to catch the overflow from the black tank during heavy rain, this is pumped back up to the black tank using a 240v (Aldi / Netto £24 / £18 special mains-powered pump) I plug this in manually when necessary (two days ago actually). As I have said, if I had more storage that would be great, I do have two copper cylinders fed from a neighbours down pipe but my son plays with this water and wastes it, they are intended for the garden anyway. I have plans to improve all of this but something else always comes along.

I get sedimentation in these tanks, which is a good thing, suspended solids only rarely make the water murky, the butts can be cleaned of sediment using an upturned funnel and hose and siphoning from the bottom. I'll have to get round to that too. Also I have a 12W solar panel and battery intended to drive the bilge pump, when I would replace the semiconductor relay with a darlington pair, but that's for later too.

Regarding links, there are too many to list, googling rainwater harvesting will do the trick but the cheapest way is to improvise. People on this thread are engineers after all. http://www.water-tanks.net/ this site has slimline tanks, it is the space that puts some people off. If you have space you can use wooden frames and damp-proof membrane and get some serious storage, or in your case dig down and line it with membrane. (The fresh pond in my avatar image is fibreglass lined and full of fish now.)

Nice one ... I must have a go at some such arrangement as the rain water butts fill pretty quick in a downpour. One is rather innacessible so that might be a good candidate. I occaisionally get the oportunity to obtain empty Commercial Laundry chemical drums 300L...really useful.

My home brew solar hot water panels are my best 'green' project so far (I've just drained 'em down for the winter, as the y are common to the domestic heat/hot water system [with suiatble check valves] and it would cost a fortune to put antifreeze in the lot! The system is a max benefit for min cost job).

Mrs Cat has me decorating at the mo'...

Cheers

Del

Hi Del. I hope you guys know that if you collect water in a water butt the water company can charge you for the rain water collected!!! The water companies in the UK own all the water, even the rain!!! So please don't spread it around that you callect rain water. If you think I'm kidding ask the water company. Spencer.

I take that completely serious Spnecer. A year or two back I made inquiries, and the regs controlling how much rain-water you can scavenge are in place and enforced. Connect a water butt to the down-pipe from the gully and you could be in real big trouble. I have an elaborate story of how the rain at the front of my house ends up just pouring onto the road. A bit long here, but some crazy wastage occurs. When I'm back next I'll try and elaborate, but some of the regulations are insane.

Hi Kris. Yes you are right, some of the regulations are completley insane here in the UK. I only warn you because I was collecting rainwater in three water butts when the water company ( South Staff's ) came round to inspect my water meter. I was charged £4.00 per water but. When I contested this insane rule they sent to me a copy of their regulations, it states quite clearly that if you do not inform your water company about any rain water butts they will charge you the double of the original costs. Thats the UK for you. Spencer.

Years back, I consulted the Citizens Advice Bureau over something in relation to a local council. I forget the specific issue, but the woman listened to what I said, and then replied "Well your first mistake was telling them anything they hadn't asked to know". Ain't that the truth ! It comes to something bad when being open with people like local government get's you in more **** than being honest. All the regulations they can spew out aren't going to stop me implimenting a certain ammount of 'improvization'. I'd love that it was different, but these idiots will make a mountain out of a mole-hill. They'll ignore the sods who go around fly tipping, yet would probably give me hell over establshing whether I only scooped off 50% rainwater or not. Umpteen forms etc. Meanwhile the local kids hang around swilling Diamond White, and the old girl opposite can't phone for help when she's being burgled. I'm starting to side with those who'ld like a dedicated politics forum, except I'd probably find myself drawn there too much.

Yeh..if they come to inspect they've got to get past my Chinese Repeating Crossbow first, 12 shots...so they'd better send 13 inspectors....unlucky for some!

What in the name of....!

I've got to admit that looks lovingly crafted. How many years did you do inside ? LOL. If anyone can make that, I'd probably do time as well. It's excellent ! tell us more Del. How's it made/what kind of wood/what size etc. It's fabulatastic !

I need to take some decent pics which shows how it works...I might get it done as a wee blog.

It's 50lb draw weight, range 150 yards, designed really as a defensive weapon to guard a doorway or similar, not v accurate as the bolts (arrows) are unfletched. If shot rapidly you can looseoff 6 bolts befor the first has hit the ground!

The lever is pushed fully forward, this catches the string, as the lever is pulled fuuly back it automatically looses the bolt.

At close range shooting into a load of cardboard it goes, kathunk.,kathunk, kathunk

Fun for all the family!

.. ..but can it light my cigarette with a good shot ? Those look a lickle like matches ? Believe me, looking round for a lighter at midnight just isn't funny. I've chipped bits of flint together before now trying to get a spark. That little angle would burn for several minutes* !

* Unless you put it in the catalogue. NOW !

It may not light your fag, but you'd need those 'Clenchomatic' trousers if you were on the wrong end of it!

Just the job when opening the door on Halloween ...shoot those little droogies from t'other thread!

Rollin', rollin', rollin'
Though the streams are swollen
Keep them dogies rollin'
Rawhide!
Rain and wind and weather
Hell-bent for leather
Wishin' my gal was by my side.
All the things I'm missin',
Good vittles, love, and kissin',
Are waiting at the end of my ride

<must get my ears tested >

Hi kris. I use a .25cal hunting rifle against those unwanted guests, I just put the silencer on and it sounds like phuuuut. Yes I'm with you on the political blog, I'm left of labour and right of conservative. And please cut out the Frankie Lane, it grates in my ear. Spencer.

Blame the Del cat ! He sort of incited me. Anyway, a crossbow is better, or maybe even one of those arm-held sling shot things.The power you can get with a revamped 'cat' is amazing. Stretch it against the arm and... thwack. They can really pack a punch.

I imagined that's how it had to work. I would like to see the pics as well. Can't Kris light his fag on the induction hob?

I had no idea, I hope no-one's going to track me down, but seriously one of the advantages is that harvesters even out the amount going down the drain and reduce overloads at the sewage farm which sometimes result in raw sewage ending up in water courses. The interesting way the carges are calculated is that you are charged one price per litre for them to supply the water and three times that price for them to take 90% of that water back as dirty. hence my comment about sh*tting in it and selling it back to them. I'll stop advertising now.

If on a meter it is worth reckoning in the volumetric charge for disposal as well as the price of purchase of clean water into a calculation. Usually a rainwater butt will pay for itself in less than a year.

Good post. An example to us all.

I agree with you, though I'd add that waste should be avoided whether there is an evident cost or not. Figuring the economics of recycling stuff can get a bit bizarre, so I incline to the view 'waste not, want not'. Doesn't work in literal terms, but the principle seems good.

At the Beijing National Stadium (Bird's Nest), the setting of the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, GE is providing multiple technologies for China's first rainwater recycling system. The National Stadium's new nanofiltration membrane rainwater recycling system will use underground pools that process up to 100 tons of rainwater per hour, 80 tons of which can be reused for landscaping, fire-fighting and cleaning a direct way to lower the stadium's water consumption.

came across this. the millenium dome also uses rainwater harvesting.

I quickly scanned the thread and did not see anything related to a flush assist system. One of my colleagues from the p-a-s-t installed toilets with a flush assist and have had NO issues in really removing the offending material. Maybe something like this would be an alternative or a great addition to utilizing grey water / collected rain.

Good Luck

and don't push too hard

It seems to me if you had an overhead reserve, that when a button, lever whatever opened the valve to allow a large amount of water head pressure to come shooting down, that you could then have a second valve interrupt the moving water so only x liters of water went by but had the momentum of a large column behind it.

cr3

Or less water from a high cistern ..like the good old days!

Maybe low level cisterns are the culpit?

Maybe a pan that is smaller diameter at the bottm with a steeper taper.

Where are the CFD guys when you need 'em (computational fluid dynamics?)

Hi Del. Thomas Crapper must be turning in his grave by now, it was he who invented the modern flush toilet. His toilets had the cistern high above the toilet bowl, and I can still remember my grandmothers toilet, it was a T. Crapper system and most effective it was. Spencer.

On board the ships where water is limited, we use a vacuum toilet system. The Average toilet system uses 4-9 litres of water every time you flush, whereas a vacuum toilet uses only 0.8 litres of water per flush.

techno,

"we use a vacuum toilet system."

Those thing are dangerous especially for overweight people, They will flush before getting up, and their extra weight seals accross the seat.

I'll give you one guess what happens. O.K. I'll give you a hint, it pulls thier insides out. ohhhh, I gave the answer away.

There were a couple of reports of this happening on airlines a few years back.

Myth busters had a go at this, they made a big silicone butt they couldn't get it to work ..myth busted.

Perhaps for airlines. But not for the intakes on hot-tubs. People would sit on these (for whatever reason, accidentally maybe?) and become partially disemboweled. Well documented.

Yuck!

Hot-tubs and swimming pools recirc. ports.

could not remember where I heard it about the airlines, probally on the radio in the short clips they would have,

So much for DIY liposuction. <sigh>

What worries me on occasion after a night on the tiles is this : If I was sat on the crapper and vomitted, would some sort of horrible syphonic incident occur ?

Not if you rehearse.

I tried this once. Folkestone even has a place called Tontine Street. It's got 1-way traffic, so re-hersing can be a problem, but I've had some earnest attempts there.

Looks like the paparazzi got you on film...

(Nice getup by the way. Psst: Like my hat?)

Oh man ! My fart-strings just gave way ! That was just so bad funny. See, I even ran out of '!!'s ! The toilet no longer holds any fear for me ( other than the possibility of knowing whatever joke Elvis heard).

"Myth Busted!"

Darn I thought we had a new diet to marketl

Didn't hold the subject...

Wow, this thread went wa-a-a-ay down the toilet

I don't worry about thrifty water usage. I have a 135' deep well with 45 gpm recovery of the best tasting water you can imagine. My water goes into my septic system where good old mother earth recycles it right back into the water table. I use as much as I want, water the lawn, fill the pool, anything I want.

Sometimes I wonder if we've gone overboard with saving water. The toilets are so stingy with water usage that there's not enough water to float the turds on down the sewer lines, but, "it ain't my problem".....oh yes it is.

I think we should worry more about not POLLUTING water with chemicals, VOC's, heavy metals and compounds that the earth can not filter and clean rather than using a lot.

It's hard for me to imagine that there is 1 gallon LESS water on the planet now than 10,000 years ago, ( except for what the Astronauts have jettisoned into space, hehe...), but I bet there are a LOT of "watersheds" that are now contaminated that weren't then.

The effect of all those hormones from contraceptive pills etc seems to be a cause for concern. Is talk of 3-eyed fish and all that just rumour or does it have basis in fact ? I dread to think what happens in places where they use Viagra if that stuff gets in the water.

Hi Kris. When I worked on the deep sea trawlers way back in the 1960s we often brought up fish with the most horrifying deformaties. Place that were spoted on both the upper and lower sides, Soles that had three eyes and once a whiting with two heads. These fish had to be handed in once in dock so that state vetinary scientists could have a look at them. The other thing that comes to mind is the fact that when hormones are released into our rivers the fish in those rivers change their sex, from male to female, this has been recorded in five of our major rivers to date. This may sound politically incorrect, but is this the reason for the seemingly rise in male homo-sexuality in the last 30 years here in the UK and elsewhere? The Birmingham water is known to have a large amount of the female hormone in it since the advent of the anti-pregnancy pill? It is also known that there has been a large rise in the number of Birmingham and related communities gays in the last 30 years. Spencer.

Wow ! I'm not sure about some of how you worded that, but I do recall hearing how fish change sex as some sort of adaptive evolution. I think I'm correct in saying that some of the 'flat-fish' start off sort of looking normal way up (for a fish) and the head slowly skews over. If nobody flames comment that might be considered homophobic etc, this is an interesting area of biology. It sometimes puzzles me that so much is spent on space research and dreams of life in Mars, yet we know little of what goes on in the Ocean depths. Maybe exploring our own planet should be a priority. Some kind of Star Trek future isn't going to happen anytime soon, so we should make the best of what we have. All the chemicals we chuck in the sea must surely have some sort of effect.. Having worked trawlers back in the 60's must make you weep when you watch how things have 'progressed'. What a tragedy, and not just in UK waters. Newtons quote about 'Ocean of truth' has an ironic factuality about it, not dissimilar to rainforest destruction. Wah.

Hi Kris. No, I am not homophobic, but if certain people want to think so that is their problem not mine!!! Another thing, if I cannot state facts without beeing accused of something then I might as well stop living. I am fed up of so-called politics and what I can or not say. Yes I have seen may strange things over my lifes course, but non stranger than we humans. The fish in question had changed their sex, now I know that the common wrasse changes sex if no males are around to fertilse the female sperm, but this was different!!! In the lower reaches of the river Severn thay have caught trout that were half way between changing sex, these fish had both male and female sexual organs. these fish were changing from male to female, they know this is the case because the fish were tagged as young fish and they were male then. As for my trawler days, 1962 to 1964, it was the law then as is now that any fish caught that showed abnormal growth had to be sent in for scientific studies.

At the time there was a big scare that the outslip from our nuclear power stations were causing these abnormalities, since then the emphasis has been on the phosphate and hormone outslip. Spencer.

Excellent post Spencer ! My mentioning the homophobic thing was just to make it abundantly clear that no bad-intent was made by either you or I. Why does this sort of thing occur with fish ? Does it happen in other species yet we just don't notice ? Somehow this thread has raised a very interesting issue. It possibly will get linked to global warming type discussion and go 'off-kilter', but is of much interest all the same. Do you think changes to fish biology have only occurred in recent years, and is it related to human activity ? Something strange seems to be happening in lots of rivers/seas, yet we don't seem to have any real answers. Some news reports appear to indicate that we are literally 'fishing the sea to death'. Dropping less chemicals in it might be one way forward. I'm not sure just how many Minke whales the Japanese need for 'research' either. One day we are all going to regret not taking better care of this valuable resource. With careful management it could save us all. A lot of questions arise over the whole issue of water management.

Hi Kris. Yes we have fished to death the seas around our country. When I was on the trawlers 25 tons of fish a day was quite a normal catch for the large trawlers I was on. The cod were up to 6ft in length, now look at the size of the cod we catch? One of the reasons for this is that when we caught full grown cod we took all the roe from them to serve up in the fish and chip shops!!! Then there is the question of fishing in the fish spawning grownds, deffinately a no, no today, or is it? As recently as 1994 I was working as an engineer at a Dutch company supplying extra large winches for their extra large trawlers that were going to fish off the edge of the continental shelf. While running in and testing one of these winches I asked a trawler captain why they had 6km of trawl wire on each winch drum?

This is his answer to me; We are going to start fishing as an experiment off the continetal shelf at 2km depth, this coincides with the 6km of trawl wire, 3x the depth of the water! He told me that we were going to have to get used to fish that we had never seen before on our plates.

Then there is your other question; How long has this water conamination been going on, by all accounts 150 years!

Other specis beeing affected; A recent report that I read stated that we are all being poisoned by chemicals in our drinking water that are extremely difficult to eliminate, especially female hormones, insecticides, fungicides and phosphates from agriculture. I personally am very afraid because of this, and our government does not seem to be the least interested in helping. Spencer.

Superb information Spencer. Nice one.

This is such a good thread someone should give it some stars

Ted Cleat

You is just jealous.

Ditto. If we can speak of fish changing gender because of environmental influences, why then should we fear censure (and censorship) when we consider the effects of such influences on our own species? I dare anyone to make this discussion a case for homophobia!

Hi europium, Thankyou, and you too Kris. Here is a bit more information on this line of thought. I have just visited my chemists (next door to me) to get my medication that I have to take until the day that I die. I have to take a drug called "Diclofenac Sodium" because of the problems I have with my spondylitis. I asked the chemist if when I urinate will any residue of these drugs be passed into the system. Hi reply was; Any drug or medication residue will be passed through the urinary system out into the water and sewagerage system!!! Nice thought eh. Spencer.