Comment by daft_pink

Sounds like someone should make a US version of the site. (I genuinely think it would be very helpful)

I don't think the point of it is to show that these regulations are exceptional or anything. Seems to me to just be highlighting the number of regulations that we have that can make life better.

Sometimes a regulation is bad before it’s good. For example: toilet flush volume.

We used to have 5 gpf toilets. They worked okay. They clogged on occasion but not too often. When they clogged, they would overflow after 1-2 flushes. 5 gallons was enough to keep the poop and toilet paper flowing through the drain pipes once they made it out of the toilet. They used a lot of water (5 gallons per flush!). They had basically no interesting technology to speak of.

Then regulations required less water, and the new toilets were bad. They were basically the same designs, using less water, and they regularly failed to flush, they clogged frequently, and they even contributed to downstream clogs because 2-ish gallons of slowly draining water didn’t get all the waste moving adequately.

Now, after years and years of bad toilets, the industry caught up. Modern toilets use even less water (often under 1.3gpf), but they use that water effectively. They flush well, generally considerably better than the old 5gpf toilets. They rarely overflow. They send the waste through the pipes forcefully. And they use less water! The industry even has standardized testing for flush performance.

I wonder if better regulation could have managed the transition to avoid the interim terrible toilets. Perhaps the performance tests should have come first, then a period of financial incentives for toilets that outperformed legacy toilets along with mandatory labeling with the water usage and performance data, and only actual requirements to use less water after good enough toilets were available.