Does anyone know if those blue things that you put in your commode to keep it blue and smelling good are a generally bad thing to be putting into the water supply (I doubt they can be any good), and if they are, doyou have something that I could use as a substitute?
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Blue Spew
You never know what you are going to encounter when you invite the Balloon Man in to share a cup of coffee.
For example, the other day he asked, innocently enough (oh, sure):
Does anyone know if those blue things that you put in your commode to k…
Toren
Just thought I’d mention they’re not going into the water supply, unless you live in New Delhi. The chemicals end up in the waste water system, where I suspect they do nothing but good until treatment filters them out.
John Cole
That is good to know. Didn’t know if the clorox things would be bad for the waste water system or not.
Halffasthero
I thought you were off until Monday? Couldn’t stay away, eh? : )
Stormy70
Admit it, you missed us. Addicted, you are, hmmmm?
I’ll stop now.
google
I direct you to Toiletology101.com
They are bad for your toilet. Very bad.
Water treatment works with bacteria so I would imagine clorine would not be helpful.
Everyman
But don’t it make your Koran blue . . . .
sean
Water supply? Nothing is bad for it — if you do anythign to help the environment, you are a communist. Rush told me so.
Rick
Considering what goes down the bowl, and what treatment the sewer contents received, such a question never would’ve occurred to me.
Must be that damn Limbaugh that’s on everybody’s brains.
Cordially…
Birkel
The chlorine is only half the deal.
The other stuff is just a blue dye.
Yes, it’s bad for the bowl. But since you live close to Canada you can just drive across the border to get a black market bowl that only requires one flush. No biggee.
Jon H
There are tablet thingies that are just white, and not goopy. I think they just contain chlorine.
– Jon
ppgaz
Yes, I have to agree … when you compare the Blue Thing to the other delights that are going down your drain to the sewer or septic tank, one wonders how bad the blue stuff would have to be to actually make the waste worse.
Blue dye and some kind of cleaner/disinfectant. Sounds like basically the same thing as mouthwash.
Without the taste.
JWeidner
This may sound strange to a lot of folks out there, but here in California I was taught never to use any kind of toilet insert, blue or otherwise. Basically, it renders the toilet tank water undrinkable (tank…not bowl!) and in the event of catastrophe (we deal with earthquakes here in S. CA…although mud slides seem to be getting popular…) each toilet tank in the house can contain a couple gallons of water that could be boiled into drinking water if needed. But not if you use any sort of insert….
So….if you feel like being being able to brag that you could drink your toilet tank water in the case of emergency….don’t use an insert ;)
Mason
Heh, we don’t use them on the off chance that the dogs run out of water and drink out of it.
scs
Not that this relates exactly to your quetion, but why is everyone so concerned about saving water?
Used water just goes down to your sewage plant where it is treated and reused, right?
Maybe some of your enviros can explain what the big deal about water conservation is.
Kimmitt
Used water just goes down to your sewage plant where it is treated and reused, right?
My understanding is that there is significant lossage in this process which is made up by pulling from the aquifer. The aquifer generally has a finite capacity to supply on a given day.
Separately, all of this costs energy to pump and refine, so it makes sense to live lightly in a general sense.
Richard Bennett
The oceans are pretty wet most of the time.
CadillaqJaq
I enjoy my own well and live 70 yards west of a 2,900 acre lake… probably will never run out of water in my lifetime.
As far as the blue stuff, John, I can only compare those to the pink things they use in men’s urinals… don’t eat ’em!
russ
Just remember this little detail…
The blue goo as was described by the article linked by posting five is a lot less toxic than dim-witted Dean-Democrat…
scs
Thanks Kimmitt. Okay that helps somewhat. It uses up energy to reprocess water. Even though, that would be an energy thing, not a water thing. And even if the water is lost in the reprocessing, it still has to go somewhere, so it can’t be really lost, I don’t think. It will go into the air or the ground, where it was to begin with anyway.
Still a little confusing this whole water conservation thing.
neil
The way I’ve heard it explained, SCS, is that there’s no cleaning technique that will retrieve 100% of the water from sewage. So if you have a 99.9% efficient system and use it for long enough, you eventually end up with a problem. Of course better cleaning/desalinization/etc techniques will develop, but the more you flush, the sooner we’ll need them.
scs
Nell -Okay, thanks, that makes sense too. The waste water builds up eventually, too fast for us to clean (or I suppose the environment to clean as well)
CJ
scs:
The conservation of water matters where the supply of potable water is limited. CadillaqJaq will likely never have to worry about running out of water in his well (so long as Los Angeles doesn’t try to siphon off his lake), but for those that depend on water from a municipal supply there are two problems:
1. where population growth outstrips the water supply, you either conserve, or go without; and
2. you should be careful of what goes into the waste treatment system as not all chemicals are removed during treatment and (here is the icky part) what ever body of water your effluent goes into may just well be the same body of water that someone else uses as a water supply (think of the Mississippi River). If you don’t care about the guy downstream, no problem.
CJ
Ruth H
Use the white ones that are chlorine. They help the bowl stay clean longer and thus you use less cleaner. Chlorine breaks down, it doesn’t last to get into the water, atmosphere maybe, water system no. After 47 years of housekeeping you can take my word for it, pretend I’m your mom. If you ever had a pool, you know you have to add chlorine cause it disappates.
Jim
I’ve found that all these toilet bowl thingys warp the rubber flapper causing the toilet to run between flushes. I quit using them and haven’t had any warped flapper problems since.
wild bird
Yeah the eco-freaks are always whinning about flush toilets thats becuase most of the enviromentalists wackos ideas come from the john just look at the crap they aim at school kids
AzureLupine
All Hail the Toilet Cake!