To save water, an iPhone app that drowns out embarrassing bathroom sounds

The Chinese Thirst project has launched a new app designed for women who flush the toilet unnecessarily just to cover up embarrassing bathroom sounds.

It’s no secret that there’s a life-threatening shortage of clean water in many parts of the world, yet the precious resource continues to be wasted. Now targeting a surprisingly common practice that’s responsible for at least some of that waste, the Chinese Thirst project has launched a new app designed for women who flush the toilet unnecessarily just to cover up embarrassing bathroom sounds. Now available on the iTunes App Store, ThirstFlusher is a free app that aims to offer an alternative to extra toilet flushes as a means of covering up bathroom sounds. With a choice of eight different noises to drown out the offensive ones – a flushing toilet, not surprisingly, is one of them – users of the app simply select the sound they’d like to use and hit the app’s button. Their phone then emits that noise while they answer nature’s call. Once they’re done, the app even displays how much water they saved by using it, and how much is being saved worldwide. The video below explains the premise in more detail: What other quirks of human nature result in wasted resources, and how could entrepreneurs work around them? App-minded entrepreneurs: this one’s for you! Spotted by: Murtaza Patel