The dual flush toilet technology was first developed in Australia in 1980 and was invented by Bruce Thompson. They were designed to consume a lesser amount of water as compared to the normal flush.  The government of Australia offered him financial assistance to build this technology. He used a cylinder shaped tank with two buttons at the top of it. The shorter flush can store up to 5.5 liters of water while the full flush has the capacity of 11 liters. This technology uses 67% less water than the ordinary flush system.

The normal flush consumes a lot of water and these were designed to reduce the amount of water consumption and efficient use the water. According to the reports of Environmental Protection Agency half of the world will be suffering from water shortage due to excessive use so the usage of water must be managed in an effective way. This technology is being adopted rapidly in different countries where water shortage is experienced.

The dual flush system was redesigned in 1994 by Caroma and he reduced the capacity of flushes to 6 and 3 liters in the full and short flush respectively.  This made them more efficient in consuming less water. These toilets are now imported to Europe and other countries in Asia. The governments have encouraged the use of dual flush toilets so that the use of excessive of water can be avoided.

This flush system is user-friendly and provides a choice of flushes. It has two buttons, one for liquid waste and the other for solid.  The shorter one is used for liquid whereas the full flush is for solid waste. This technology use less amount of water to flush away the waste. The normal flush system uses the process of water pressure combined with the air pressure to wash away the waste while the dual system utilizes the pressure of water to drain the waste. This makes the dual flush toilet more efficient in consuming water. Even the full flush consumes lesser amount of water in comparison to full flush.

The ordinary flush system can easily be replaced by dual flush toilet. There are two options of doing it, either to make changes to the entire toilet or just by replacing the ordinary flush tank with dual action flush lever and valve. The conversion kits are easily available in the market and cost about US $29-30.

These innovative dual flush toilets have a number of advantages. First of all they are user-friendly and are available in the latest designs. Secondly, they save us from the excessive use of water as they have two buttons for flushing one for liquid and the other for solid waste. The only disadvantage of these dual flush toilets is their fitting in the already constructed bathrooms. But thanks to the dual flush conversion kits which are present in the market and can be purchased at a minimal price.

With their growing popularity another alternate of dual conversion kits have helped thousands of people in installing this technology.  The ordinary flush can easily be converted into dual flush toilet by attaching a rubber handle that can use either partial amount of water stored in the tank or empty the whole of it depending on which side it is bent.  These dual flush conversion kits not only save water but also money.