[Christ]

I used to use a bucket to flush the toilet... skip the water holding tank altogether, because my toilet never had one. Just dump the bucket into the toilet bowl.

The toilet was an old (illegitimate number of) gallons model, but it would flush with very little water used directly into the bowl, probably a gallon or so, as long as it was poured in quickly with as little splash as possible, and at the front of the toilet's bowl area.

I rather like the rainwater ideas, and plan on getting to work on some myself, once I get settled into a house that doesn't belong to my wife's family members...

I'd really love to get them into such a thing, but frankly don't have the extra energy needed to change their mind about "treehuggers" and such. I don't care to face the arguments that things which obviously are more efficient cannot actually be... so I just wait it out. Eventually, I'll be on my own.

Fortunately, my own father listens intently when I show him ways to save money, and isn't against washing his dishes in rain water. (That's how they did it camping, so why not now?)

He's actually quite content with showering in rain water, actually, although I haven't set anything up like that quite yet. He currently pumps water from a deep well, so it's basically ground-filtered rain water anyway, probably with more crap in it than rain water would have.

My own home's water system will mostly be rain and recycled water, but there will be 4 separate water systems in use:

1. Rain water collection for all things which don't require 100% clean/filtered/pure water, such as dishes, laundry, showering, other cleaning activities.

2. Gray water re-collection system from drains of all things run on the first system, for things like watering plants, flushing toilets, etc.

3. Fresh water supply, just in case, such as shallow well or city supply line.

4. Purifier for rain water and freshwater supplies, for drinking.

For those of you who think that it's "gross" to shower in rain water, do a precip test on your "clean" city drinking water supply... then get back to me.