Grey Water Central | Common grey water mistakes | Grey water policy center | The New Create an Oasis with Graywater (book) | Builder's Graywater Guide (book) | Laundry to Landscape | Wild Water Wisdom (article) | Graywater Q&A

You are here: Home > Graywater Information Central

Graywater information

• Common mistakes & preferred practices
• Graywater Q&A
• Laundry to Landscape forum
• Graywater links
• Consulting
• Indoor grey water reuse
• Builder's action summary
• Gray water workshop
• sistemas para aguas grises (en Español)
• Greywater in cold climates
• Greywater pressroom

Graywater books and DVD

• The New Create an Oasis with Graywater (book)
• Builder's Graywater Guide (book)
• Laundry to Landscape (DVD)

System examples

• Laundry to Landscape
• System selection chart (PDF)
• Branched drain system explanation
• Branched drain system example (PDF)
• Branched drain in indigenous community
• Manual graywater systems of Huehuetortuga
• Gravity drum
• Greywater site assessment/ system checklist (PDF)

Graywater regulation

• Grey water policy center
• Greywater press center
• California greywater policy center
• Model Greywater Ordinance (doc)
• UPC&CPC improvements
• IPC improvements
• Stub outs
• Reward for permitted systems

Graywater research and science

• Fecal coliform measurements
• Treatment effectiveness vs. wastewater application depth
• Monitoring Graywater Use: Three Case Studies in California (pdf)

Related topics

• Septic system failure
• Watson Wicks
• Sewers & water quality
• Composting toilets (book in progress)
• Green septic system
• Plumbing and Masonry Spanish Dictionary (download)
• Wild Water Wisdom (article)

Greywater irrigated garden in state of CA study

What is graywater ?

Any washwater that has been used in the home, except water from toilets, is called graywater . Dish, shower, sink, and laundry water comprise 50-80% of residential "waste" water. This may be reused for other purposes, especially landscape irrigation.

(This is the definition common in Europe and Australia. Some jurisdictions in the US exclude kitchen sink water and diaper wash water from their definition of graywater . These are most accurately defined as "dark graywater ")

Why use graywater ?

It's a waste to irrigate with great quantities of drinking water when plants thrive on used water containing small bits of compost. Unlike a lot of ecological stopgap measures, graywater reuse is a part of the fundamental solution to many ecological problems and will probably remain essentially unchanged in the distant future. The benefits of graywater recycling include:

• Lower fresh water use
• Less strain on failing septic tank or treatment plant
• Better treatment (topsoil is many times more effective than subsoil or treatment plant)
• Less energy and chemical use
• Groundwater recharge
• Plant growth
• Reclamation of otherwise wasted nutrients
• Increased awareness of and sensitivity to natural cycles

Healthy fruit from sanitary irrigation of edible landscape

Why does graywater matter?

Viewed narrowly, graywater systems don’t look that important. A low flow showerhead can save water with less effort. A septic system can treat graywater almost as well.
But when you look at the whole picture—how everything connects—the keystone importance of graywater is revealed.

• Ecological systems design is about context, and integration between systems. The entirety of integrated, ecological design can be reduced to one sentence: do what's appropriate for the context.
  
• Ecological systems—rainwater harvesting, runoff management, passive solar, composting toilets, edible landscaping—all of these are more context sensitive than their counterparts in conventional practice; that's most of what makes them more ecological.
  
• Graywater systems are more context sensitive than any other manmade ecological system, and more connected to more other systems.
  
• Get the graywater just right, and you’ve got the whole package right—and that matters.

Many people and organizations instinctively recognize that graywater is the ideal test case for the transition to a new way of regulating and building that is appropriate to a post-peak resource, mature civilization.

The US Green Building Council, the City of Santa Barbara, CA, Oregon ReCode, and SLO Green Build are among those organizations which independently chose graywater standards as the technology with which to launch their programs of regulatory reform.

Is graywater reuse safe?

Yes. There are eight million graywater systems in the US with 22 million users. In 60 years, there has been one billion system user-years of exposure, yet there has not been one documented case of graywater transmitted illness.

(In contrast, 400 Americans get hit by lightning each year. More details, calculations and references).

Is graywater legal?

In practice, graywater legality is virtually never an issue for residential retrofit systems—everyone just bootlegs them. However, graywater legality is almost always an issue for permitted new construction and remodeling, unless you're in a visionary state such as Arizona, New Mexico, Texas (and soon, NV, MT, OR, and CA). For details see our Grey water policy center and Builder's Graywater Guide (book).

The benefits of graywater recycling (in detail)

* Lower fresh water use

Graywater can replace fresh water in many instances, saving money and increasing the effective water supply in regions where irrigation is needed. Residential water use is almost evenly split between indoor and outdoor. All except toilet water could be recycled outdoors, achieving the same result with significantly less water diverted from nature.

* Less strain on septic tank or treatment plant

Graywater use greatly extends the useful life and capacity of septic systems. For municipal treatment systems, decreased wastewater flow means higher treatment effectiveness and lower costs.

* Highly effective purification

Graywater is purified to a spectacularly high degree in the upper, most biologically active region of the soil. This protects the quality of natural surface and ground waters.

* Site unsuitable for a septic tank

For sites with slow soil percolation or other problems, a graywater system can be a partial or complete substitute for a very costly, over-engineered system.

* Less energy and chemical use

Less energy and chemicals are used due to the reduced amount of both freshwater and wastewater that needs pumping and treatment. For those providing their own water or electricity, the advantage of a reduced burden on the infrastructure is felt directly. Also, treating your wastewater in the soil under your own fruit trees definitely encourages you to dump fewer toxic chemicals down the drain.

* Groundwater recharge

Graywater application in excess of plant needs recharges groundwater.

* Plant growth

Graywater enables a landscape to flourish where water may not otherwise be available to support much plant growth.

* Reclamation of otherwise wasted nutrients

Loss of nutrients through wastewater disposal in rivers or oceans is a subtle, but highly significant form of erosion. Reclaiming nutrients in graywater helps to maintain the fertility of the land.

* Increased awareness of and sensitivity to natural cycles

Graywater use yields the satisfaction of taking responsibility for the wise husbandry of an important resource.