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Saving Water with Nigel Codman from Novaloo

Saving water is Nigel Codman’s mission. Not long back, Nigel was in a conversation with a 35 year head of purchasing veteran for a multi-national company who declared she’d never had a conversation about toilets. Nor had she ever been as excited about toilets.

Frankly, Nigel could sell anything. But, he decided to save the world by saving water one flush at a time.

Saving Water, Nigel Codman, The Next 100 Days Podcast

SCHOOLBOY JOKE ALERT
Who invented the toilet? Answer, Thomas Crapper. His design, 140 years ago, was to put enough water in a cistern, high enough up, and let that water fall down into a bowl and it would clean that bowl. Since then, people have been trying to reduce the amount of water used by toilets.

Currently, toilets use 9 litres per flush. Nigel cautions people NOT to fill up a plastic milk bottle, stick it in the cistern to try reduce water usage. All you’d be doing is impairing the design of the toilet. If it was designed for 9 litres, then 7 litres won’t do the job.

Introducing Nigel’s Saving Water Toilet

His toilets save as much as 85% of the typical 9 litre flush that legacy toilets use. Check out the Propelair Toilet.

You have probably stopped at one of the service stations that have installed these types of toilet. Imagine their saving, when they are being used round the clock with 60 cubicles between male and female toilets. Each toilet will see 240 flushes per day.

THE MATHS – Save 7.5 litres per flush. 60 toilets. 240 flushes per day. That saves 39.4 MILLION litres per year. And that’s just one service station.

The Last Bastion of Corporate Social Responsibility is SAVING WATER

Payback within 2 years or even 10 months – surely that will excite a CFO.

Other Benefits

Nigel makes the point that it is not just about saving water. That’s the main thing, save water, save money. However, you are also saving carbon. A much lesser amount of water is going down to the water treatment plants, so they save carbon on how they treat the water.

In the last 18 months, hygiene has come to the fore. When SARS hit us in 2003, scientists discovered that transmission came from toilets. By using the toilet, the virus was off-loaded so to speak. That’s fine, providing you SHUT THE LID. But the contents of the bowl get agitated when the toilet is flushed. The Propelair toilet will not flush until the seat is firmly down. This prevents airborne viruses spreading on flush. Not so much in regular toilets.

You’ve been warned. Shut the damn lid!

Improve Hygiene, The Next 100 Days Podcast

 

 

 

 

A plume of air from a flushed toilet will rise 1.5 metres. It contains micro-molecules of water. All will contain bacteria and viruses in the droplets. They hit the walls of the cubicle/WC. Worse, they stay there for about 48 hours.

Good God, run for your lives!

You’d think for purchasing managers, this is an easy decision. So what is stopping them?

Objections

The Propelair toilet blows our and water down into the bowl. The air is vented off so it’s prevented from going into the drainage system. An alternative solution is the suck principle. They are complex to engineer into a commercial property. Propelair is about twice the cost of a standard commercial toilet.

Some hospitals have toilets without lids! Who’s to say that toilets aren’t the root of the circulation of viruses in hospitals.

Nigel works with David Emslie, a previous podcast guest who spoke about saving costs through lighting.

Contact Nigel Codman at Novaloo

Get in touch with The Next 100 Days hosts…

Want to know more about Graham Arrowsmith?

Graham Arrowsmith, Managing Director Finely Fettled Limited, Meet ProfessionalsFinely Fettled – If you want more affluent and high net worth customers, investors or patients, Talk to Graham at Finely Fettled. His West Yorkshire based Marketing Consultancy works with financial advisers, investment brokers, professional services and care companies.

Meet Professionals – This is Graham’s business focused on providing lead generation systems for financial advisory companies.

Contact Graham:
LinkedIn: Visit Graham’s LinkedIn Profile
Twitter: Visit Graham’s Twitter Page
Email:  Email Graham Direct

 

Ever wondered what Kevin Appleby does?

Kevin Appleby, Consulting, GrowCFO

Kevin is a Chartered Accountant who has worked as a management consultant for a number of years specialising in finance transformation and implementing business change. Currently he is COO of GrowCFO. GrowCFO is Where Finance Leaders Grow Together. Becoming a successful CFO requires commitment and dedication towards delivering your full potential. GrowCFO provides both a community and CPD accredited training designed to grow the next generation of finance leaders. You can find Kevin on linkedin and at kevinappleby.com