For months, we lived with the quiet frustration of cheap dual-flush toilets that promised savings but delivered them only after a second, and occasionally a third, press of the button. Add in the long wait for the cistern to refill before you could try again, and you have a small but persistent daily reminder that not all “green” fittings are created equal.

So we decided to walk our own talk. We replaced two of our office toilets with the Arumloo, a low-flush toilet designed and manufactured right here in South Africa.

Why Arumloo

Part of what drew us to Arumloo is that it is proudly local. In an industry where so many “sustainable” products are shipped in from overseas, it was refreshing to find a genuinely local-is-lekker solution: designed in South Africa, manufactured in South Africa, and built specifically with South African water realities in mind.

• The plastic Arumloo is 100% manufactured in SA
• The ceramic components are manufactured in Egypt, ensuring that although the components are imported, supporting the African manufacturing sector is a priority
• The final assembly is also completed in SA.

For a consultancy that spends its days helping clients source responsibly and think about supply chains, that mattered to us.

Biophilic Design

The Arumloo’s form is modelled on the arum lily, translating the plant’s curved petal and gentle taper into the shape of the bowl and cistern. It’s a reminder that biophilic design isn’t only about bringing plants indoors, it’s about letting nature’s forms genuinely inform the products we use every day. In a fitting most of us never think twice about, that’s a small but meaningful shift, and it’s the kind of detail that makes you smile every time you notice it.

The Installation

We’re the first to admit that when a bit of plumbing is involved, we brace ourselves for disruption. So it was a pleasant surprise that swapping out our old units for the new Arumloos was genuinely simple. Both toilets were installed within an hour, with no drama, no extended downtime, and no need to rethink our existing plumbing. If you’re a facilities manager weighing up whether a retrofit like this is worth the hassle: it isn’t a hassle.

Does It Actually Work?

This is really the question that matters. Anyone can promise water savings; the test is whether the toilet performs once it’s bolted to the floor and in daily use by an entire office.

The headline number is 2 litres per flush, a fraction of what a standard toilet uses, and even less than most “efficient” dual-flush units manage in practice. But the number on the spec sheet is only half the story. What actually convinced us was the flush itself. Arumloo’s flush mechanism uses a vortex action that clears the bowl properly, first time, every time. No second flush. No third flush. No standing around waiting for the cistern to refill before you can try again. It simply works: quietly, efficiently, and without any of the compromises we’d grudgingly accepted from our previous dual-flush units.

In other words, the Arumloo doesn’t ask you to sacrifice performance in exchange for water savings. It gives you both, which, if you’ve ever sat in a meeting about “water-wise” fittings that don’t quite deliver, you’ll know is rarer than it should be.

Why This Matters to Us

At Solid Green, we spend our days helping clients chase down every litre and every kilowatt-hour across major developments – office towers, hotels, precincts. It’s easy, in that context, to think of water efficiency as something that happens at scale, in big systems, in complicated certification credits. The Arumloo swap was a useful reminder that meaningful water savings can also start with something as ordinary and overlooked as the humble office toilet.

Toilets are, after all, one of the biggest consumers of water in any building, and one of the easiest places to make an immediate dent in consumption without asking anyone to change their behaviour. Two litres per flush, multiplied across a full working day and a full team, adds up to a genuinely significant reduction over time: water that isn’t drawn from an already strained system.

It’s a small, practical step, but it’s exactly the kind of step we encourage our clients to take: treating water not as an inexhaustible utility, but as the precious resource it is. In a country where water security is never far from the headlines, every fitting that genuinely performs as advertised is worth celebrating and worth specifying. Installing the Arumloos in our own office is one more way of making sure we practice what we preach, one flush at a time.

If you’d like to see the Arumloo range for yourself, have a look at arumloo.com or reach out to Jonny Harris. And, next time you’re in our office, feel free to put the vortex flush to the test.