My precious toilet
Many modern eco-toilets feature two buttons on top—one for a small flush and one for a large flush. What is the name of this water-saving system?
Dual Flush
This incredibly fast-growing woody grass can shoot up over a meter in a single day, making it a highly renewable choice for living room flooring instead of regular wood.
Bamboo
To save massive amounts of electricity from a mechanical dryer, you can hang your wet clothes outside on one of these entirely sun-and-wind-powered setups.
A Clothesline (or Washing line)
That strong, chemical "new house smell" from fresh paint, new carpets, or plastic furniture is actually caused by these toxic chemicals evaporating into the air. What is their 3-letter acronym?
VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds)
They are incredibly tiny, but the "free labor" of these buzzing insects adds over $200 billion to the global food economy by pollinating crops around our homes.
Bees (or Pollinators)
This is the specific name given to relatively clean wastewater from your bathroom sink, shower, and bath that can be safely recycled to flush your precious toilet.
Greywater
Standard glass windows let heat escape easily. What feature uses two or three layers of glass with a trapped gas in between to keep the living room insulated?
Double Glazing (or Triple Glazing)
To naturally clean the air and remove carbon dioxide from a room while releasing fresh oxygen, a healthy house will place several of these decorative items around.
Houseplants (or Plants)
If a house is built perfectly airtight to save energy, it will start to smell stale unless it has a mechanical system to constantly swap indoor air for outdoor air. What is this process called?
Ventilation
While a single teaspoon of healthy garden soil looks tiny, it actually contains more living microscopic organisms than there are of what specific population on Earth?
Humans (or People — there are about 8 billion)
Unlike greywater, wastewater from the toilet bowl itself contains sewage and is unsafe to reuse without serious treatment. What "color" name is this water given?
Blackwater
What smart gadget can you install on the wall to automatically turn down the heating or cooling when everyone leaves the living room, saving tons of power?
A Smart Thermostat
Instead of throwing organic kitchen scraps like apple cores and banana peels into the trash where they rot and make methane, you put them in a backyard bin to make what?
Compost (or Fertilizer/Soil)
If a bathroom or kitchen gets too damp and lacks proper airflow, you'll start to notice a musty smell caused by this fuzzy, dark fungus growing on the walls, which can make you sick.
Mold (or Mildew)
Even though they are completely invisible to the naked eye, a house with a healthy backyard relies on billions of these organisms in the dirt to decompose old leaves and feed the plants.
Bacteria (or Soil Microbes)
What simple metal or plastic nozzle can you screw onto a bathroom tap to mix air into the water, cutting water waste in half while keeping the pressure high?
An Aerator
Traditional old-school lightbulbs waste 90% of their energy as heat. What is the 3-letter acronym for the ultra-efficient modern bulbs used today?
LED
To prevent a house from getting freezing cold in the winter or boiling hot in the summer, thick layers of fluffy fiberglass or wool are packed inside the walls. What is this called?
Insulation
Many air fresheners use synthetic chemicals to mask odors. A healthier, natural alternative is to diffuse these concentrated extracts taken directly from plants, flowers, or fruits.
Essential Oils
To build a truly "maximus" sized eco-building without using heavy carbon-emitting concrete, modern architects are using "Hempcrete," which is concrete mixed with fibers from what plant?
Hemp (or Cannabis)
To avoid using toxic chemicals like chlorine in a backyard pool, healthy homes use "natural pools" that clean the water using these living organisms instead.
Plants (or Reed beds / Algae)
Ditching traditional fabric carpets for materials like hardwood or polished concrete prevents the living room from trapping these microscopic critters that trigger allergies and asthma.
Dust Mites (or Dander)
Materials like cardboard, wood, and natural fibers that can naturally rot and break down via bacteria without polluting the earth are known by what 13-letter word?
Biodegradable
If an older house has a strange metallic taste or smell in its old plumbing, it might be due to this heavy, toxic metal that was banned from water pipes because it damages brain development.
Lead
Some massive green buildings have a roof entirely covered in living grass and soil. Besides cooling the building, this helps stop what "maximus" neighborhood disaster during sudden heavy rainstorms?
Flooding (or Flash Floods / Stormwater runoff)