Want the secrets to a bathroom with environmental cred? Read on!

By Anna McCooe

The modern day bathroom is about indulgence, and rightly so - where else do you shut yourself off from the demands of day-to-day life just to spend a moment that's all about you?

With deep luxurious baths and wall-to-wall tiles, a decadent bathroom can be somewhat of a guilty pleasure, unless you've discovered the latest direction in bathroom design: going eco! With the right choices, you can splash away, safe in the knowledge the water won't go to waste. Plus, solar hot water supplies ease the guilt factor and your bills. The eco bathroom is all about amping up the feelgood factor; especially now with recycled raw materials providing the much sought-after day spa look, your guilt-free pampering is now well within reach.

SAVE CARBON

material saviours

Salvage great style and the environment by looking to recycled bathroom supplies. By trawling through your local demolition yard or heritage supply centre, you can expect to find one-off pieces and unique materials that add a sense of soul to your bathroom as well as saving such treasures from the trash heap. New materials can be a bit more complicated. "When looking for eco materials for the bathroom, it's important to consider the whole life cycle of the product; there's no magic bullet," says Stan Vermeeren of The Environmental Edge.

He suggests products should:

* be local or Australian made to reduce wasted transport energy;

* contain recycled materials or be made from a renewable source, such as plantation timber;

* be as natural as possible, which means less energy during the manufacturing process;

* be durable and easy to keep clean without using harmful chemicals;

* and be recyclable at the end of its life.

Locally sourced timber and plasterboard painted with low VOC (volatile organic compounds) paint can be considered green, while imported stone may be natural but it isn't renewable and clocks up a lot of carbon during the transportation process. If you're after tiles, Australian-made large format options are the lesser evil because they create fewer grout lines to keep clean, which saves the environment from unnecessary chemicals.

going solar

Put Australia's boundless supplies of sunshine to good use by opting for a solar powered hot water system. "A solar water system - boosted by gas during days of little sun - is the most energy and cost-efficient way to produce hot water," says design consultant Lorene Warwick of Sustainable Concepts. According to Origin Energy, you can solarise your hot water for as little as $2,395 (visit www.originenergy.com.au/gosolar or call 132 463 or 1300 308 624), which includesa $1000 rebate from the Australian government (visit www.greenhouse.gov.au/rebates).Once installed, you can expect to save $300 to $700 a year on your energy bill, as well as three to five tonnes of annual greenhouse gas emissions. Just ensure you insulate all the components, including the pipes that deliver the water to the shower, in order to achieve the best performance.

SAVE WATER

the water revolution

In the bathroom, the best source of water is rain, collected in a rainwater tank ready for use in your toilet (saving up to six litres of water per flush with a dual flush toilet) and shower (saving up to 90 litres of water per 10-minute wash with a water-efficient showerhead). Used shower and basin water - known as greywater - doesn't have to be washed down the drain, it can be sent on to the laundry and garden using a greywater diversion device, which flushes water straight from the home (currently, you cannot store greywater). Expect to pay from $50 to $200 for a simple do-it-yourself diverter, or up to $15,000 for a self-contained automatic system that treats your water as well as diverting it.

Hot water recirculators are also worth thinking about. These pump those first few litres of cool water back into your hot water system (priced from $600, call Eco Smart on 133 326), saving every last drop from escaping unnecessarily down the drain. If you're not in the midst of planninga renovation, a bucket at the base of your shower can be just as noble.

restricting the flow

"Your shower and toilet are among the biggest water guzzlers in the home," says sustainability consultant Stan Vermeeren. "To check if your current fittings are efficient, simply turn the tap on full, put a bucket underneath and time 15 or 30 seconds. Then measure the volume of water you have collected. Efficient showerheads have a flow rate of about nine litres per minute."

Flow restrictors and eco showerheads are easy to install without a plumber and most water suppliers now have a free showerhead exchange program. Also, the latest models in low-water showers are shaking up the spartan image of their predecessors with a wider spray of hollow water droplets and massage settings for a more luxurious experience. The latest generation of waterwise toilets are also stepping up their game, with four-star rated suites using only 4.5 litres for a full flush and three litres for a half-flush - no competition when compared with the old-fashioned toilets that use 13 litres!