Reusing Greywater: Recycling Water Used in Drains Other than the Toilet

There are a number of ways to dispose of greywater. In most American households, it's simply flushed away with all other used water. In other words, it has no use. Things don't have to work that way, though. Greywater can be reused throughout your household.

Going From Grey to Black
I mentioned in my article about blackwater that I would give you a water saving alternative to composting toilets and to using drinking water to flush. Grey water is the alternative. If your area insists you have a septic system or you're already set up to dispose of blackwater, this may be appealing to you. There are a number of methods to plumb the used water from your sinks or bathtub to the toilet before it leaves the house. The simplest and most direct methods are rumored to have issues with smells. The water sitting around waiting to be used can go stale and breed stinky bacterias. Some people put the water through simple treatments on its way to the toilet. This doesn't have to be complicated. It can be as simple as adding some chemicals to a holding tank.

Other Uses for Greywater
Since I'm planning on toilets that don't use water, I've put most of my focus into other uses for greywater. Mainly that means watering plants. Greywater can be used safely on non-edible plants, and on certain food-baring plants.

There are a few "tricks" to using greywater safely on food plants. First, don't let the water touch the part of the plant you're going to eat. That's the same as drinking the greywater and that's just gross. It can also make you pretty sick. So, don't water things like carrots with it, and make sure you're watering just the soil of anything else. You don't want it touching the leaves of your lettuce, for example.

Second, make sure it's greywater. Some people are more careful about this than others, but you could end up sick if too much fecal matter ends up in your plant water. You could make sure that certain water sources only go to non-food plants. I'm thinking of installing a switch on my sinks and tub, though. If I'm washing out diapers, for instance, I'll be sure the water heads to the flower beds. If I'm washing my face, it can certainly go to the good plants. Another alternative is to avoid plumbing altogether and just carry the bucket from under the sink out to whichever garden you like. That may get old fast, though.

Lastly, you want to make sure chemicals that aren't safe for your plants aren't in the water. If you use all homemade, or all natural cleaning and beauty products, you can skip to the next paragraph. I fall mostly into that category but have chemically dependent family members (I'm talking about shampoos, people - sheesh) that will be visiting me in my new home. It's physically painful to breath if you go anywhere near the bathroom for hours after my mother is done with her morning ritual. I can't imagine what the products she uses would do to tomatoes. I will just be flipping that switch and treating any chemical waste our house produces the same as the fecal matter. One or two weeks a year are small enough doses of commercial beauty products that it won't be a danger to the local environment. If I see research or evidence to the contrary, I'll just be sure that the plants watered with that water are self contained. Lined flower beds along the side of the house aren't exactly a hardship or an eyesore.

Of course, greywater can be used directly on non-food plants, too. It doesn't have to be separated or go through your food plants first. It's still a good idea to water the soil instead of the plant though. Animals may get into the leaves and make themselves sick, or your kids may pick those flowers then put their hands in their mouths.

Watering With Greywater
I've come across two viable ideas for watering your plants. Both are incredibly simple. The first idea is to irrigate. Run a pipe with holes in the dirt along the plants. The holes tend to get clogged, so a variation is to run it in a ditch. There's a chance of contamination since the water is starting above soil and soaking in, but you will be able to see any problems in the line and address it promptly.

The other idea is to have a pipe simply end in a planter. It can be as large of a planter as you need, but that way the water won't just run everywhere, but end up getting to the right plants. The downside of this is that the further the plants are from the watering pipe, the less water they receive. What I'm planning to do is set up a series of planters, each slightly lower than the next. This is a common set up for cleaning greywater for reuse. With each planter, the water is slightly cleaner and safer than the next. I don't feel the water will be safe enough for my family to reuse at the end of the process, so any water the food plants don't use will be piped out to either fruit trees or non-food plants.

Multiple Household Uses
The last idea I want to throw out there is about reusing greywater for household uses. This is something anyone can do, even in a standard plumbed house. You don't want greywater sitting around growing bacteria, but it can be put to multiple uses before it's disposed of. There are infinate ways to do so, but I'll discuss a couple to get you started.

1) Consecutive bathing. I'm not talking about reusing the nasty brown stuff your grade schooler just washed off himself. It's not at all uncommon for my daughter to ask me not to drain the tub after I bath, though, so she can hop in. I use scented oils that she loves, and I don't let her use them very often herself. I just did a quick search and found tubs ranging from 20 to almost 70 gallon capacity. Just letting my daughter reuse my bathwater from time to time seems like a bigger step with that in mind.

2) Washing clothes. If you hand wash, it would also save a lot of water to reuse not-too-dirty greywater on clothes. Use the water you used to wash your hands before meals or other similar tasks for washing. It doesn't have much more than soap and water in it anyway. Then, you only have to use fresh water for rinsing.

Please share your ideas for greywater reuse in the comments, no matter how big or small. I'm always looking for new ways to increase our efficiency, and I'm sure anyone reading this article will appreciate it too.