During California's drought in the late eighties and early nineties, I saw a sign in a bathroom "If it's yellow, let it mellow. If it's brown, flush it down." Crude, but effective. California appears to be entering another cycle of drought conditions, so it's time to take a moment not to flush.
Toilets can range from as little as 1.3 gallons per flush to 2.2 gallons per flush for older toilets. If the average person in California flushed 8 times a day, that'd be 364,000,000 gallons at best and 616,000,000 gallons at worst. Even with the most water guzzling toilets, if the average person instead only flushed twice a day, the total consumption of water by toilets would be 154,000,000 gallons. That's less than half of the total water used by high efficiency toilets.
A number of years ago, I lived in an apartment with a high efficiency toilet. Often, it required double flushing to get the big stuff down. Even then it backed up on occasion. It was really a pain in the butt. One day the plumber had to come out and resolve our problem. He said that the materials (to put it delicately) were getting stuck in the line because not enough water was flowing through the line. He remarked that high efficiency toilets often cause this problem particularly in older buildings. Further, he said some high efficiency toilets not only cause more problems but they require multiple flushings reducing the effectiveness of the water saving feature.
It's better to use a regular toilet and only flush when it's brown. After all, urine adds more water to the bowl making it easier to flush down the big stuff. So when you're taking a quick bathroom break, give the bathroom a break and save the flush for the big stuff.
