Old Toilets Blaze Trails for Recycling : Conservation: The fixtures, replaced by low-flow models, are being pulverized and used as a paving base for new roads.

Calle Real does not look like a street that has made history. It is just an anonymous frontage road, choked by weeds, beside U.S. 101 on the outskirts of Santa Barbara.

But crouch beside the right-turn lane near the bowling alley, study the asphalt, and you will see hundreds of tiny white flecks glistening in the sun--visible evidence that Calle Real was the first street in the country composed of ground-up toilets.

A road paved with toilets does not have the kind of cachet that will contribute to Santa Barbara’s reputation as an upscale vacation destination. But among recycling experts, this Central Coast city is revered for taking 10 tons of discarded toilets and creating a road.

Since Santa Barbara revolutionized toilet recycling, Santa Monica and Marin launched their own programs and have recently ground up thousands of old commodes for road base. Now, dozens of other California cities are preparing to collect residents’ water-guzzling toilets--exchanged for water-conserving models--and begin similar programs.

Water experts, faced with an increasing supply of old toilets, are now searching for even more uses for the crushed porcelain. The state Department of Water Resources is currently testing whether the material can be used in concrete. The San Diego Water District hopes to one day use the ground-up toilets for landfill layers. Other water experts are investigating whether the material can be used as mulch for landscaping or as roofing material.

Creating a road out of ground-up toilets is an amusing novelty to many people, but to California water officials it represents an important solution to a troublesome problem. During the last few years, as the drought worsened, residents have been encouraged to install low-flow toilets. Most of their old toilets were simply discarded at overcrowded landfills.

There are 19 million toilets in homes throughout California. The state’s Water Conservation Planning Program hopes to one day replace every one with low-flow models.

“What do you do with 19 million toilets?” asked Deborah Braver, a manager for the state’s water conservation program. “Without a way to recycle them, we’d just be solving a water conservation problem and creating another environmental problem--at the state’s landfills.”

Escondido is now considering building a street out of the pulverized toilets and officially naming it something like Commode Road or Calle El Bano, as an enduring reminder about the values of recycling.

“Instead of one of those signs that says Your Tax Dollars at Work, our sign could say Your Old Toilets at Work,” said Cynthia Ferguson-Salvati, head of Escondido’s conservation program. “Signs like this and giving the street a catchy name would be a way to raise people’s awareness . . . and encourage them to think more about water conservation.”

Construction companies are eager to use the crushed toilets because “it’s such top-quality material,” said Wendy Corpening, a toilet expert so knowledgeable that she is referred to as the Commode Queen. Corpening, who is based in a small town near Stockton, heads a consulting firm that specializes in low-flow toilets.

American toilets, Corpening said, are made out of vitreous china, a mixture of high-grade clay that is fired and glazed. Because the material is extremely hard, non-porous and non-toxic, it is ideal for construction uses, she said.

Corpening is always eager to talk about toilets. But when the conversation turns to low-flow toilets (1.6 gallons per flush) and the recycling possibilities for the water wasters (five to seven gallons per flush) she exhibits boundless enthusiasm.

“It’s amazing; it’s absolutely phenomenal; it boggles the mind,” she gushed. “Think of all this great construction material for nothing. Imagine how much water could be saved if all these toilets are replaced.”

Before Santa Barbara initiated the road program, residents along the parched Central Coast recycled their toilets in more primitive ways. In San Luis Obispo, some filled the bowls with dirt, planted geraniums or cactus and set the creations by their front doors. In Santa Barbara, residents have turned their old toilets into birdbaths. And in Monterey, one couple placed a sheet of glass over the seat and turned their old toilet into a coffee table.

Los Angeles has too many old toilets for these kinds of outmoded solutions. Since the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power began its $100 toilet rebate program, 30,000 toilets have been replaced, said George Martin, head of the department’s conservation program. He hopes to initiate a recycling program similar to Santa Barbara’s, but on a massive scale.

“Our toilet-replacement program is potentially the biggest in the country,” Martin said. “If we don’t recycle them, we could be faced with 3 million toilets, which are not, of course, biodegradable. They could gather dust in our landfills . . . forever.”

In Santa Barbara, the drought provided the impetus for the experimental road program. After the city and neighboring Goleta offered $80 cash rebates to residents who exchanged their toilets for low-flow models, the county landfill was soon home to a mountain of old commodes.

Larry Tanaka, a civil engineer with the county’s Public Works Department, was assigned the unenviable task of disposing of them. He initially considered dropping the toilets a few miles offshore and creating an artificial reef for fish. Other cities, including Santa Monica, also considered building such reefs, but the state Department of Fish and Game is opposed to the idea.

A scuba diving club had surreptitiously dropped a few dozen toilets a mile off Hermosa Beach during the mid-1980s. Initially, the toilets were a good habitat for lobsters because of their irregular shape and large elliptical bowls, said Fish and Game marine biologist Dennis Bedford. But within a few years, after being struck by countless anchors, the toilets had shattered.

“I went down there on a dive and all that was left were small shards of porcelain. I was pretty disappointed.” Bedford paused and said wistfully, “A toilet reef seemed like such a good idea.”

When Tanaka realized he couldn’t jettison the toilets, he began researching other alternatives. He knew that the county had recycled glass by grinding it up and using it as road base. Tanaka figured he would give toilets a try.

A milling company ran the toilets through a rock-crushing machine and the county road division began the testing process. They mixed the pulverized toilets with crushed rock and asphalt and tested it for durability, strength and resistance.

Materials engineers discovered that it met all the state specifications for Class II aggregate base, which is used as a foundation for roads. In fact, the aggregate was actually stronger when toilets were substituted for the standard rock and gravel, said William Menchen, a senior engineer for the county. The overall amount of crushed toilets in the mix was 13%, he said, but the percentage could go as high as 50% and still meet state standards.

The county decided to use the material to widen a section of Calle Real. Workers spread the aggregate--which included more than 400 crushed toilets--on the road, about 10 inches deep, and then paved over it.

Since the project was completed last year, Southern Pacific Milling Co. in Oxnard routinely includes Santa Barbara’s old toilets in the aggregate it uses on road construction and shopping center parking lots. Blue Diamond Materials in Long Beach now grinds up Santa Monica’s old toilets, mixes it with gravel and concrete and sells the material by the truckload to construction companies. And numerous other cities--including San Diego, Anaheim, San Luis Obispo and Monterey--are proposing similar arrangements with construction companies.

In addition to saving landfill space, recycling the crushed toilets also has other environmental benefits, said Braver, of the state’s water conservation program. The rock and gravel that the material is replacing is a natural resource that has to be mined from quarries or riverbeds.

This strip mining can leave “terrible scars in the earth,” she said. Recycled toilets can serve the same purpose as natural rock, without the problems associated with creating more quarries. And in addition to the porcelain, the metal fixtures--stripped from the toilets before crushing--can be melted down and recycled.

Santa Barbara’s innovation was so important because the state soon may be confronted with a huge supply of old toilets. In Santa Monica, residents who haven’t exchanged their toilets for low-flow models are charged about $2 a month. And legislation recently proposed by state Sen. Lucy Killea (D-San Diego) would require low-flush toilets to be installed in all California homes and businesses before they could be sold.

If state engineers find that the pulverized toilets strengthen concrete, the demand for the material would be limitless. And California could create a new design fad if porcelain shards begin replacing roofing rock.

“I just talked to a roofer who used the crushed toilets instead of gravel on a rooftop and he said it looked real nice,” said Terry Payne, production supervisor for Southern Pacific Milling Co. “And when you’ve got pieces of the colored toilets in the mixture, it can be even more attractive.”