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What's wrong with the old toilet seat?

Are the previous tenants so gross that you need to change it?

A greener solution is keep the old seat, but give it a good clean. Heck, you can even hire a cleaning lady to do it!

I really do need a new toilet seat (the screws attaching it to the toilet are corroding from what I can only imagine is decades of exposure to various kinds of noxious chemicals), and I'd love to replace it with something a little more earth friendly.

Not sure I have $64 lying around, though. What's the going rate for a toilet seat these days?

Opoponax, the el cheapo plastic seats at Home Depot start at just under $13. Wood seats with no environmental claims run $1 more. Then there's a tier of slightly better quality seats where plastic is $26-32 and wood is about the same.

Assuming that the $13 seats will have hinge and wobble problems quickly, so you'd want the $32 wood seat, the premium for going green is 100% ($64 is double $32) plus the cost of your finish coat (since it seems to be unfinished) plus your time and trouble.

It might be worthwhile to do some comparison shopping for a wood alternative that meets your particular environmental criteria, since wood is so commonly available.

Being curious, I then went looking for the $64 bamboo seats to see if there were some alternative price points.

I'm not sure why the original posting mentioned using a low-VOC finish, as the seats are finished already, and nothing is said about what finish was used. If you look at one of the product descriptions, there are also rubber bits and chrome-plated bits, plus the unknown finish, plus the (very disputable) claim that bamboo (a softwood) wears better than hardwoods. So yeah, the seats are plausibly more green than plastic, but being more green than a normal wood toilet seat would require a lot more evidence than is offered.

wow, thanks wende!

Personally, I don't really get the whole bamboo = green concept for durable goods. While bamboo might be a more sustainably farmed species, items made from it won't last as long (and/or will be harder to maintain) as items made from a hardwood. I have a bamboo salad bowl, serving tray, kitchen utensils, etc, which I love -- but after 3 or 4 years, they're starting to show their age. That's sorta OK for a $7 salad bowl from Target which can be repurposed for non-food use and eventually recycled, but I don't know that I'd want furniture, floors, or even a toilet seat that needs replacing that quickly.

Just a random thought (although I was totally thinking about replacing my old toilet seat the other day), is that if you DO go for a fancy new expensive seat, with the intentions of taking it w/ you when you move, PLEASE be so kind as to keep the old seat and put it back on before you and the u-haul hit the road.

When I moved into my new place, I wasn't even thinking so far ahead about TP, ran in to use the bathroom, and was SO appreciative that the former tenant left the roll. I can only imagine my horror if the entire seat had been gone!

Colleen, I had that same thought!

I've replaced a lot of the little touches like that in my apartment (drawer pulls, lightswitch covers, etc), and I've made sure to hold on to the old boring ones just in case I really want to take the nice ones with me when I eventually move.