This has been an interesting week researching greywater and the impact it has on our environment.   Our households use a lot of clean water that could be recycled from within the home.  Old water from our toilets, washers and sinks could be used in a number of different ways around the house.  To make a change, we have been filling our toilet tank with used water from our showers/baths and it has been really easy to do.  Our water to the loo has been shut off all week.  This exercise has shown me how silly it is that this greywater is NOT being used around the house.

It almost seems ridiculous that the water from our showers are not moved a few feet to be used in the toilet.  Even before the green movement, people were concerned with saving money and it would seem a very easy way to keep a few pennies in our wallets.  Obviously, I am thinking about this in retrospect, but this would seem like a change that could be implemented into new construction rather easily. I think I might have an invention on the horizon!

What do I know though, right?  Well, I am going to keep on working on my new invention and also thinking of different things I can do with greywater.  Let me know your story in the comment area below.

This week’s green challenge is to learn about greywater.  As indicated in a previous post, greywater is any waste water that comes out of the household other than toilet water.  Today, I am going to take a look at some facts about grey water and some possible things that can be done with it.

Greywater consists of 50-80% of a household’s waste water.   This water can be reused in a manner that allows households to reduce impact on the environment.  Water from the dishwasher, shower or laundry can be collected and used in various manners around the house or homestead.  The question that comes to my mind is exactly how easy and convenient is all of this?

For me, the obvious change I could make would be to put my bath water in the toilet.  They are right next to each other and I might be able to conserve one or two flushes a day by reclaiming this greywater.  As I discovered in a previous task the average household sends about 19 gallons a day down the toilet.  We have already cut this down quite dramatically by following the “if it’s yellow let it mellow, brown flush it down” mantra.  Going further, this week we are going to try and keep a bucket the bathroom and fill up the toilet with this greywater.   We should be able to save a few extra gallons per day. 

It might be easy for us to reclaim the water from our laundry, but I am not sure where we would be able to use all of this greywater.  The laundry uses several gallons of water per use and this could come in handy during the warm months, but during our arctic winter in Fargo, uses for 10+  gallons of water might be difficult to find.  We do not have any plants.  During the summer months, we could use this to water the plants at our garden or in our back yard.  Any suggestions you may have would be appreciated.

To begin this week’s challenge, we are filling our toilet with a bucket and we are dang proud of it.  If you have any tips or suggestions, please let me know in the comment area below.