Chunhong Chen

Yiyuan is the combination of two Chinese characters: ‘yi’ meaning fairness and ‘yuan’ meaning water source: ‘by giving our company this name, we want it to champion fair, responsible use of water resources through a breakthrough technology,’ says Chunhong Chen, the Managing Director of the company, whose brother designed their innovative product – a toilet that economises up to 83% of water compared with conventional 6-litre models.

Out with the old…

The Yiyuan toilet takes water straight from the mains, with no need for a tank to store it. ‘That means no leakage,’ says Chunhong, ‘and no need to wait for it to refill either, which is especially practical in public lavatories.’ Where traditional flushing toilets use a siphon to drain the sewage and the water that remains in the bottom of the bowl as a seal from the drainpipe, Yiyuan toilets use gravity to pull sewage down and a valve to separate the dirty from the clean. ‘The foot pedal means you don’t even touch the toilet with your hands, so no cross-contamination issues arise either. And creepy-crawlies can’t get access through your lavatory!’

In with the new!

This breakthrough technology, which the company has patented, means that even if the mains supply is cut off, the equivalent of a large glass of water would suffice to clean the toilet. The system requires no new fittings or adjustments to install and is extremely hard-wearing. Tests to measure its robustness have seen it take up to 300,000 flushes before any sign of a fault: ‘going by average use for one family, that makes a life span of 100 years, three times longer than traditional flushing toilets,’ says Chunhong.

Yiyuan has also developed a set of versatile pipes and joints, which means its toilet can be easily installed in any location. The real advantage, however, in terms of environmental effect, is that this lavatory uses just one litre of water to flush the sewage away: that’s 17% of conventional toilet flush consumption, and only 11% of the amount flushed by older traditional 9-litre models. ‘In China, flushing waters account for half a family’s total water consumption,’ says Chunhong, who is very active in environmental awareness. Indeed, it was on a trip to visit a solar energy company as part of a trade delegation last year, that she and her company had a lucky break: ‘I met a network of people working for Shanghai Expo 2010, and told them how I wanted to showcase our toilet there. One meeting led to another and we found ourselves officially equipping the UN pavilion, among others!’

Hard lessons to be proud of

It’s been quite a journey for Chunhong, who started life in a village in south-east China, where her parents were modest farmers. ‘All 40 schoolchildren in the area studied in one classroom,’ she recalls, ‘with just one teacher.’ A teacher she admired so much she resolved to become one herself. Despite her good grades, however, she was forced to leave school: ‘when my parents divorced, my father did not think it worthwhile to support the last years of school for a daughter,’ she says. ‘I left home in dismay.’ After a succession of tough jobs in factories, she learned that the exams could be taken as an external candidate, taught herself, and five years later qualified as a professional teacher.

In an interesting twist, it was her father who indirectly created the impetus for her move to entrepreneurship. ‘He was an avid inventor and intent on designing a water-saving toilet. It was actually he who inspired my brother to take up that challenge. When my brother succeeded, I was stirred to start teaching myself again — this time to run a business!’

Saving water

As a small company in a vast country, Yiyuan is building up a network of impressive references: ‘we have received good support from the Hongkou district of Shanghai and our toilets have been installed at the Shanghai Efficiency Centre, a government environmental agency,’ Chunhong says, ‘but we still need to take it much further.’ In Chunhong’s dreams, the whole city of Shanghai would use Yiyuan toilets, ‘and 270 million tons of water would be saved!’