Susan Carpenter, a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, spent two years working on transforming her California home into a truly sustainable oasis, complete with chickens, a gray water system, and a composting toilet. She recently wrote a great piece for the paper about her experiences, and offered thoughtful commentary on which eco projects she found to be worthwhile, and which didn't work out so well for her.

Carpenter was thrilled with the gray water system, which directed the water she used in her washing machine on to her garden instead of into the sewer system. The compost toilet, however, was one project she gave up on. The model she selected, which stored "No. 1 and No. 2" in separate 5 gallon buckets, was eventually abandoned in favor of using her conventional toilet and flushing less frequently.

The composting toilet was truly a noble effort on Carpenter's point, and such systems aren't for everybody. One other option she might have explored, however, would have been to install a dual flush toilet as part of her eco home renovations. Dual flush toilets, like the H2Option from American Standard, can save 1,400 gallons of water per year - an amount that is most likely greater than what one can save by simply flushing less often.