Canadian plumbing supply stores near the U.S. border are doing a bustling business thanks to Americans who want old-fashioned 3.5-gallon-capacity toilets instead of the 1.6-gallon low-flush models required in the U.S. since 1994. Some political conservatives have been driving the trend, arguing that 1.6 gallons often aren’t enough to do the job and that the government should keep out of people’s bathrooms. G. Gordon Liddy boasted on his talk show that he traveled abroad to buy banned toilets for his new house, and Rep. Joe Knollenberg (R-Mich.) is sponsoring a bill to legalize the old-style toilets. But a recent study in Consumer Reports found that new models “worked just fine,” better than earlier low-flush models. The 50 million low-flushers installed in the U.S. since 1994 save 500 million gallons of water a day.
