Follow for more talkers

Goodbye toilet brush? Entrepreneur claims invention would change how world cleans toilets

Avatar photo

Published

on
female hand in purple rubber gloves holds a plastic cleaning brush on green background, close up

By Lauren Beavis via SWNS

An entrepreneur claims his hand-held jet washer spells the end of the toilet brush.

Kam Mistry has invented a cleaning bottle called the Shiffter that blasts water at high pressure around the rim of the toilet.

He claims it is more effective and hygienic than a traditional bristle brush and will save billions of liters of water a year by reducing the need for repeated flushing.

Kam, of Stroud, England, has patented the design and is now raising funds to put the Shiffter into production.

The former communications manager for Stroud District Council came up with the idea while cleaning the toilet.

Entrepreneur Kam Mistry using "The Shiffter" on a toilet. (SWNS)

"The Shiffter came about by accident after I visited the toilet one day," he explained.

"With the flush not cleaning the bowl properly I decided, as many of us would, to grab the bleach bottle to see if I could clean it up by squirting bleach onto the bowl.

"Squirting bleach is a desperate measure and isn’t remotely effective as the bleach is really thick and therefore doesn’t come out of the bottle fast.

"On this occasion the bleach bottle was just about empty, so I took the lid off and filled it with water.

"The Shiffter" which was created by Entrepreneur Kam Mistry. (SWNS)

''However, having filled it with water, I noticed that the low viscosity of the water (compared to the thick bleach) meant that squeezing the bottle allowed the water to jet out under high pressure and effectively jet wash the remnants from the toilet bowl much more effectively than bleach… and much less disgustingly than having to use a toilet brush. Eureka!"

The Shifter has two valves – a water and an air valve – which blast out water at high pressure and make it drip-free and more effective than just a squeezy bottle.

Aside from reducing plastic waste from throwaway toilet brushes and reducing the use of bleach and toilet cleaner, Kam says his product has the potential to save tens of billions of liters of water a year in the UK alone.

Kam explains: "With the average UK person flushing five times a day and toilet cisterns containing six liters of water, that equates to 730 billion liters of drinking quality water used to flush UK toilets every year.

"For scale, England’s largest lake, Lake Windermere, contains 300 billion liters of water and it is 10.5 miles long, one mile wide and 220 feet deep.''

Stories and infographics by ‘Talker Research’ are available to download & ready to use. Stories and videos by ‘Talker News’ are managed by SWNS. To license content for editorial or commercial use and to see the full scope of SWNS content, please email [email protected] or submit an inquiry via our contact form.

Top Talkers