November 8, 2021

Imagine sitting behind the wheel of your car, facing a bumpy road filled with traffic and laden with potholes. You can count on your vehicle to get you from point A to point B, despite the less-than-stellar road conditions, right? Just as a car can keep you moving in comfort and safety despite roads in need of repair, toilets and other plumbing fixtures and fittings enable you to comfortably and safely control the flow of water into and out of your home, despite the crumbling infrastructure below.

While there is always room for improvement in toilet and plumbing industry innovations, we know that no amount of technology will fix the heart of the issue: the infrastructure crisis festering underground.

Right under our feet, there are approximately 1.6 million miles of water pipes and systems that were installed in the mid-1900s and have well exceeded their useful life. Earlier this year, the American Society of Civil Engineers issued its 2021 U.S. infrastructure report card, and our wastewater system scored an unimpressive D+. Despite the innovative solutions we continue to create to help make a safer and more sustainable home, the infrastructure problem remains below the surface.

This Issue Is Rooted Deep Underground

Faucets aren’t putting the lead in your water, and toilets aren’t making the pipes crumble – we can thank old and outdated water infrastructure for that. In fact, toilets and faucets are continuously being reinvented or improved upon to protect your family from the dangers coming through the pipes and into your home. We are the interface between you and the infrastructure. We are doing what we can to protect you through innovations like built-in filtration systems that create clean drinking water, showers free of contaminants and high-efficiency toilets and fixtures to reduce water usage.

But the water infrastructure was built for inefficiency, requiring larger amounts of water to move waste through. Ironically, the quest to conserve precious water has also highlighted a widening technology gap between what is in our homes and what is underneath. It’s just one more proof point that our infrastructure has to catch up with the times.

What Are We Going to do About It?

For starters, we need more people to care about the problem and want to be part of the solution. Plumbers are vital to the health and safety of our communities, but we are facing a shortage of skilled workers, as plumbers are retiring at a faster rate than they can be replaced. That’s why LIXIL is actively looking to fill this void by fostering partnerships with allies like our customers, sales representatives and vocational technical schools to raise awareness of the industry, reach younger audiences and highlight the opportunities a career in the field offers.

Our goal at LIXIL is to continue to innovate and improve the livelihood of 100 million people through sanitation and hygiene solutions by 2025. We have 150 years of plumbing experience under our tool belts. That’s more than enough time to see that while the industry continues to advance, our infrastructure has not. The bi-partisan physical roads, bridges and water-focused U.S. infrastructure bill currently pending in Congress includes funding for modernizing our aging water systems and combating the public health crisis we have as more Americans distrust drinking water from their own kitchen faucet. We recognize this as a great start to solving the problem and have joined Plumbing Manufacturers International’s call on Congress to pass a comprehensive water infrastructure deal.

While we continue to push for infrastructure change and innovate products to protect people at home, we call on everyday toilet users to evaluate their flushing habits, too. We know many products label themselves as “flushable,” but if you ask any plumber, that is not always the case. In reality, anything other than toilet paper poses a risk for sewer blockages – further damaging the already at-risk infrastructure. Dumping fats, oils and grease (FOG) down the drain doesn’t work, either. Once underground, these FOGs combine with the “flushable” wipes and products to form “fatbergs” – large masses that damage our pipes and are both difficult and expensive to remove.

The point is, everyone can do their part to protect the pipes we have until we get the infrastructure improvements we need. We know there is a long road ahead of us and a lot of work to be done, but we are committed to continuing to create innovative technology and water solutions that make better homes a reality for everyone.

By Trey Northrup, leader of LIXIL Americas, a global market leader in water technology products and home to the American Standard, GROHE and DXV brands

Photo by Happyphotons