The Bathroom Manufacturers Association's Yvonne Orgill has been in full flow this week, with two comment pieces that are of real importance to our industry and, I believe, mankind in general.

One of the pieces is featured below and please make sure you read it as it's the other piece I'm mentioning here - the need for the entire bathroom industry to get behind the Water Label to help us all make better choices and save water. Yvonne's calling for the industry to take action in a week that toilets - specifically toilets which work without water - have been in the news.

Yvonne refers to Microsoft founder Bill Gates unveiling a toilet that doesn't need water but instead uses chemicals to remove waste. Regular readers of my leaders will be aware of waterless urinals (which use a chemical to improve hygiene and reduce odour) and the compost loos I use when I'm away at festivals - which don't require water or chemicals. Sadly, neither of these is practical in most people's homes but I'm hoping that the concepts can be adapted so they can be more readily available to us in the civilised world in the near future. I can vouch for the fact that compost loos are the perfect solution for the millions who don't have access to toilets and whose lives involve water shortages on a scale that most of us can't comprehend. I can't opine on waterless urinals though!

Like Yvonne, I believe that our industry must take seriously the need to save water, particularly as 22% of water used in the home is due to toilet usage and 25% for showering. We could really make an enormous difference, couldn't we? And with the predictions that Britain will need an extra 4,000 million litres a day by 2040 to cope with a drier climate and increased population, and Government wanting targets of around 80 litres per person per day, as opposed to the current estimate of around 142 litres, it would be better to be more proactive than to end up facing imposed restrictions.

"Many manufacturers have developed water saving products but we need greater support for the Label and help to communicate its benefits," says Yvonne. "It is currently used on 12,500 products and supported by 144 brands, this could be so much more but we need the industry to get behind it and drive forward real change."

Bravo!

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Yours,

Jan Hobbs