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The law of unintended consequences in the bathroom

By Joe ⋅ April 21, 2008 ⋅  Email This Post ⋅  Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment

My bathroom isn’t the cleanest one around, but it isn’t the dirtiest either. Last month, however, my bathroom was treated to a once over like never before, for several days it shined and basked in the glory of cleanliness. I can thank former President George Bush for these few days where nary a loose hair resided in my bathroom.

October 24th, 1992. The day that President Bush senior signed into law the Energy Policy Act which put a 1.6 gallon limit on residential toilet flushes. The progressive thinkers of our country gave themselves a collective pat on the back, and then proceeded to get out their plungers to fix the millions of clogged toilets that spread like the black plague across the US.

So it came as no surprise to me last month while plunging my toilet that what I was seeing was the law of unintended consequences in action! Here we have Congress caving to environmental concerns by passing a law limiting the amount of water we can flush down our toilets. That’s OK though; We can get around this problem by holding down the flusher for a few seconds to clear the plumbing. In fact, I think the “courtesy flush” originated as an additional flush prior to finishing up on the toilet so that it would not clog by trying to flush everything at once; A courtesy to whoever might need to mop up the bathroom floor.

I could have followed any of these guidelines last month when my toilet clogged itself from the woefully inadequate 1.6 gallon flush, but my failure to act led to an hour long session of mopping, bleaching, cleaning, and sanitizing so that I would feel safe to walk barefoot on my bathroom floor again.

How much water would have been saved from multiple flushes, clogging, and cleaning if this law had never been passed? We may never know.

-Joe