Enhanced Residential Bathroom Sustainability: Challenges and Opportunities

The research reviews the rationale behind water and energy saving in the domestic application within the bathroom unit in the UK. Various technologies for water saving including rainwater harvesting and greywater recycling and the related regulatory issues are reviewed. Various water saving toilets, as well as waste water heat recovery systems, were discussed and compared. The incentives, impact, challenges, and opportunities for various stakeholders including end user, property developers, technology companies and researchers, utility companies and the government are analysed. The review shows that greywater recycling for toilet flushing has highest user acceptance and is inevitable for zero/close to zero carbon home development. It was found that technology barriers are still an important factor in the application of the current products, including adaptability and size to fit a wide range of bathrooms as well as initial cost. The retrofitability of any technology was found important to create a timely impact on the decline of resources and infrastructure stress. The article gathers a range of technological and market challenges based on the individual components and technologies in the bathroom and concludes that an integrated approach is required for an effective technology in the bathroom.