we waste soo much water

why isn,t grey water used to flush our toilets and water our landscapes?

think gas is a problem? try living without water!

Well, some parts of the country will move that way, slowly. Just the storage of gray water raises trememdous issues of public health, when you think of it in terms of a system on the premises of each home, with the homeowner having responsibility for safe maintenance and operation of the system. As far as the landscape, graywater cannot be distributed on the surface. Again, public health issue. There have been some systems put in for sub-surface distribution, but none has yet worked out the all the bugs. As far as I know, no system is commercially available at this time.

Here is one of many reasons that won't fly..........taking a dump and that gray water splashing up on you......not a pleasant thought. Now take in consideration how nasty toilet tanks can get from mold from water sitting inside them when there are multiple toilets in the house.......figure what unclean water would be like; you would be replacing flappers continually due to buildup. It's a great idea but people urinate in the tub/shower....laundry removes blood from clothes and feces. It wouldn't be safe to water your garden in the back yard let alone bring that back into your home for use without numerous protective measures to prevent air or waterborne diseases. The use of 1.6 toilets have helped. If half the world fix their plumbing water leaks, there will never be a shortage,,,,,,,and that is never going to happen.

"Rugged" states the facts in very graphic terms, and I agree 100%. Any attemp to use gray water directly would have to deal with the sanitation.

What IS a very viable approach is to treat all the waste water on a community-wide basis. That is done right now in San Diego. There are 2 large treatment plants up and running. The reclaimed water is virtually safe to drink, but not quite, but it is safe for irrigation use. Most of the freeway watering and municipal landsape watering in large areas of the city are now all reclaimed water. It is also available to golf courses. Eventually, it will be available for new home developers to put in a reclaimed irrigation system on houses. Residential use is not available right now because the distribution infrastructure is not in place. It is a very simple set-up. ALL exposed pipes, valves, manifolds, and sprinkler heads are color-coded purple, indicating non-potable water.

AND there is the cost incurred with the "double plumbing" system that would need to be installed throughout the house, NOT TO MENTION the potential for cross-contamination. The plumbers/handymen/diy'ers out there would have to pay particular attention to what drainage is for what fixtures in the rough-in phase. We would need yet another way of drawing the grey water drainage to separate it from the sewage lines, and god help your liability if you were especially tired or hung over or some such thing and created a cross-connection situation. Back flow prevention, cross-contamination, special treatment... how about we just reduce our usage of water instead? Let's get excited about yellow grass and turn our nose up at snobby green grass

Very lucky San Diego, Jimbo... we can't even get past primary treatment for our sewage - the powers that be believe our waste is "perfectly harmless" to our surrounding waters. Kudos to SD for even contemplating the thought of treating grey water!

this is interisting

over on the ridgid forum plumber rick said catalina island uses salt water to flush toilets

Similar to what Jimbo described, here in the San Francisco North Bay, waste water disposal was (is) a big problem. Several communities here now distribute treated waste water in residential areas for landscape irrigation. The city of Santa Rosa has also constructed a pipeline that delivers partially treated waste water (up to 11 billion gallons a year) to the Geysers steam field, where it is injected deep into the earth and converted into steam for power generation. Treated waste water is also being distributed to local farmers for vineyard irrigation (NOW you know why California wines taste soo good).

-Steve

toolaholic said:

over on the ridgid forum plumber rick said catalina island uses salt water to flush toilets

Click to expand...

I am not surprised at that, because the climate of S. Cal. is of course semi-arid coastal desert, and they are just a little too far off shore for a pipeline from the mainland.

hi slb i,m in marin co.

over 20 yrs ago there was a 7 yr drought here in marin co. what was the co. inspectors allowing for plumbing changes to use grey water in gardens?
back then i was welding full time as a pile buck. thank,s in advance

toolaholic said:

over 20 yrs ago there was a 7 yr drought here in marin co. what was the co. inspectors allowing for plumbing changes to use grey water in gardens?
back then i was welding full time as a pile buck. thank,s in advance

Click to expand...

toolaholic,
I live a little north of you in Healdsburg (Sonoma County). Not sure I understand your question, but I know the city of Windsor distributes treated waste water (not gray water) in some of there newer residential areas for landscape irrigation.

-Steve

thank,s steve

i live in san rafael