Using Grey Water
Grey Water was not really I term I knew much about, till I stumbled across it the other day. But it is basically re-using the waste water from sinks, baths and showers again.
Depending on what you were using the water for in the first place, grey water can contain a combination of soap and detergents, so they are really not suitable for watering any plants or crops you may eventually eat, so the herbs I am growing on the windowsill are out. But grey water is fine for watering house plants with.
If you have a garden, which I don’t then the best grey water to use is bath water rather than kitchen sink and washing machine water. This is because the shampoos and soap you have been using in your bath are very mild and very diluted in the large volume of water. This grey water can be made even safer by using products that are biodegradable like Ecover, washing products, rather than chemical based toiletries.
I have also been reading that one third of all water used in the house is wasted flushing the toilet. If you want to be really green you could use your bathwater and a pail to flush the toilet with. But it isn’t really a practical idea as you would need to leave stagnant water lying in your bath, and since it has been hot and cooled down it is the perfect environment for bacteria to grow. So the next best thing I could think of is to put a brick in the cistern, I guess the volume of a brick is at least 1 litre so if you multiply that by 2 (number of times I might flush the toilet a day if not more) and then by 365 (a year) this adds up too 730 litres or 193 gallons of water a year I am saving, quite a lot when you start thinking about it.
Depending on what you were using the water for in the first place, grey water can contain a combination of soap and detergents, so they are really not suitable for watering any plants or crops you may eventually eat, so the herbs I am growing on the windowsill are out. But grey water is fine for watering house plants with.
If you have a garden, which I don’t then the best grey water to use is bath water rather than kitchen sink and washing machine water. This is because the shampoos and soap you have been using in your bath are very mild and very diluted in the large volume of water. This grey water can be made even safer by using products that are biodegradable like Ecover, washing products, rather than chemical based toiletries.
I have also been reading that one third of all water used in the house is wasted flushing the toilet. If you want to be really green you could use your bathwater and a pail to flush the toilet with. But it isn’t really a practical idea as you would need to leave stagnant water lying in your bath, and since it has been hot and cooled down it is the perfect environment for bacteria to grow. So the next best thing I could think of is to put a brick in the cistern, I guess the volume of a brick is at least 1 litre so if you multiply that by 2 (number of times I might flush the toilet a day if not more) and then by 365 (a year) this adds up too 730 litres or 193 gallons of water a year I am saving, quite a lot when you start thinking about it.
posted by discount king at 10:20 AM
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