A Happy Conscience and a Larger Wallet! – The Eco-Friendly Desert Shell

With increasing environmental concern, we as consumers look for ideas and ways to be as green with eco friendly products as much as possible. We do things such as recycling, walking instead of driving, and car-pooling. However, we often forget about flushing the toilet. Although a necessity, a large amount of water does indeed get wasted. Here’s an astonishing fact: In September 2002, The National Geographic, reported the average American used 101 gallons of water daily. If we could control the water that gets flushed, imagine how significantly that amount will be reduced!

As we all know, traditional toilets use tanks that offer no option in the amount of water that is flushed. These tanks also use fresh, drinkable water. This is where the ingeniousness of the Desert Shell comes in. The Desert Shell lavatory/toilet creates an eco friendly product to help reduce and reuse your water usage, effectively fitting 2 of the 3 “green” abilities. It achieves this by immediately reusing hand washing water, “gray water,” to flush. As easy to install as traditional separate toilets and lavatories, it requires no extra plumbing and does not need a tank; the sink essentially becomes the tank.

Best of all, the eco friendly product, Desert Shell, can be used with virtually any toilet design so the transition and installation from your conventional toilet would be quite easy and inexpensive. The industry recommends replacing the flapper ($10.68) of traditional toilets every year as they wear out and don’t give a tight seal. Retail prices of traditional toilets can range anywhere from $78 to $298. By replacing the flapper yearly, in 7.3 years it could equal the $78 original price! Dennis Lunder at Valterra custom manufacturer (ThomasNet) says that the flapper and flushway would cost less than $3 per combination for the Desert Shell. The flapper of the Desert Shell can also be set to only flush, leaving the floor under the pedestal uncut. Therefore, the combination can be installed over the hole left by a removed toilet and have no floor removal for a sink down-drain.

In a nutshell, this low tech, eco friendly product will also save you money by effectively reducing and/or eliminating:

–      Unnecessary water usage (“slow the flow” of a limited global resource)

–      Water bills

–      The amount paid for a new toilet and sink

–      “Secret leaks”

–      All tank gizmo repairs and replacements

There you have it. No “secret leaks,” wasting water, or inflation of your water bill. The Desert Shell gives you a happy conscience and a larger wallet!

About: MAKO Design + Invent is the original firm providing world-class consumer product development services tailored to startups, small manufacturers, and inventors. Simply put, we are the leading one-stop-shop for developing your physical product from idea to store shelves, all in a high-quality, cost-effective, and timely manner. We operate as one powerhouse 30-person product design team spread across 4 offices to serve you (Austin, Miami, San Francisco, & Toronto). We have full-stack in-house industrial design, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, patent referral, prototyping, and manufacturing services. To assist our startup and inventor clients, in addition to above, we help with business strategy, product strategy, marketing, and sales/distribution for all consumer product categories. Also, our founder Kevin Mako hosts The Product Startup Podcast, the industry's leading hardware podcast. Check it out for tips, interviews, and best practices for hardware startups, inventors, and product developers. Click HERE to learn more about MAKO Design + Invent!