Talk:Greywater

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Contents

[edit] Commercial information

Under "Indoor reuse" there is some commercial information about greywater treatment. As must be expected this is very, very incomplete, and should be removed. A much more general information could be provided. This could be:

Greywater, being only slightly polluted but representing the larger part of a household's wastewater, can be easily treated and reused in single or apartment houses, offices or tourism facilities, thus tremendously reducing freshwater demand. Greywater uses can be toilet flushing, garden irrigation, outdoor uses, but also laundry and even showering. The treatment technique and the quality of the treated greywater will have to be adapted to the reuse purposes. Normally greywater is collected seperately in each building or group of connected buildings, treated in a decentralised system and fed into a supply network for service water in the same building. There are a wide range of decentralised treatment techniques and ready made treatment devices available worldwide, not all being marketed in all countries. Among the most successful techniques are sequencing batch reactors (SBR), membrane bio-reactors (MBR), constructed wetlands (CW) and similar systems. For marketed devices see a list below. Successful examples include an apartment building in the Klosternga in Olso, the office buildings of the KFW and the GTZ in Frankfurt, the Arabella hotel in Offenbach, or apartment buildings in Berlin. Many other examples can be found on the internet.

List of marketed systems
List the ones already presented in the text
Add for example (and invite others to add their links):
AEE INTEC (CW)
Busse (MBR)
GEP (MBR)
Pontos (SBR)

[edit] Carpeting

The thing about carpeting seems absurd. I'm taking it out for the time being - anyone have any information? Hardwick

No, but I agree with you.

[edit] Cleanup

I have started a cleanup and extension of this article. My plan is basically to have introduction, description and 'how it is reused' sections. I also suggest that a section on the plumbing aspect be included because greywater uses distinctly different plumbing from blackwater.--ChrisJMoor 03:32, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

It's going well, but I've added a cleanup tag for now, to get more attention onto it from editors. I've just created Water conservation, which links here.
It seems that there's not much else on Wikipedia about reuse of wastewater - the reuse section of the wastewater article could be expanded, or perhaps a separate article started. --Singkong2005 02:24, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Septic tanks

I thought greywater was the water in septic tanks. Say explicitly if true or not. --—Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.201.31.246 (talk • contribs)

I would say it is true and if not then that is where it belongs. What do your think about, greywater being used for fake snow? --—Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.67.164.80 (talk • contribs)
My greywater tank comes from the bath/shower and kitchen/bathroom sinks. The kitchen sink goes via a grease trap to remove the grease from washing up (it gets pumped out every 3 months or so and disposed of). The greywater gets pumped out every day into my acreage yard. The septic tank is ONLY hooked up to the toilets and settles out before gravity feeding into a soakaway pit.
So no, greywater isn't necessarily in septic tanks.--—Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.25.140.98 (talk • contribs)
Australian laws define grey water as non-toilet - ie no faeces. However, the laws also say we may only use grey water from showers, bathroom handbasins and laundries. We may not use water from kitchens because people use caustic dishwashing powder, and because the volume of solids is so much higher than the other sources. Our native plants also die if fed phosphates, so we must use nil-phosphorous or very low phosphorous laundry powders. Another issue is that we can't release grey water above ground. This minimises human contact. See Art Ludwig's site below. {{--Richardh9935 11:05, 16 September 2006 (UTC)richardh9935}}

Greywater is generally defined as anything not coming from the toilet. In recycling practice however, the water from the kitchen sink, dishwasher, and bathroom sinks is considered to be too "dirty" to reuse for the volumes of water produced, and is usually not captured for recycling, leaving bath water and laundry water as your best options. (Highest volume of water, lowest amount of contaminants.) Hope that helps. Crockspot 13:28, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] LINKS

Can we ask Art Ludwig to contribute? He's produced a huge volume on his own website: www.oasisdesign.net • Copyright Art Ludwig ©1997 -2006 {{--Richardh9935 11:05, 16 September 2006 (UTC)richardh9935}}

[edit] Living Walls

The article on Living Walls is somewhat lackluster but it still does say that these walls can be used to clean greywater. At the end of this article a section should be added with a link to the living wall article.

[edit] Grey Water vs. Greywater

The single word Greywater looks weird to me; Grey Water looks comfortable, so I checked with Google.

"Grey Water" gets about 590,000 hits compared with 366,000 for "Greywater". "Gray Water" gets fewer hits than either, but far more than "Graywater". It appears the world agrees with me, but not strongly.

Any objection to changing the article to consistently use 'Grey Water' as the main term? --—Preceding unsigned comment added by Jamie Lokier (talk • contribs)

You're right about google hits. I prefer greywater - maybe something to do with being a chemical engineer, that we make our common terms, such as "flowrate" into a single word. But Wikipedia isn't a specialist's resource, and it appears either is acceptable so I wouldn't object to a move. --Singkong2005 (t - c - WPID) 13:42, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

I work in the industry, and "greywater", "grey water", "graywater", and "gray water" are all commonly used. I personally use "greywater". Crockspot 13:22, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hazards of greywater

The article states in the first paragraph “greywater … is still considered to be a health and pollution hazard if released into the natural environment untreated”. What are the threats to health? I am storing water from my worm farm (it smells a bit) and would like to know whether handling this water and putting it on the garden is unhealthy.

Gg39au 20:44, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm just responding to this because nobody else has responded quickly and not because I'm an expert. I assume you have a worm farm as a hobby or to dispose of kitchen scraps. Your worm water is probably smelly because you are storing it and it is becoming anerobic. Use it at once and it should not present any greater risk than water that percolates from pot plants and composting containers. The water may present a greater health risk if you put kitchen scraps into your wormery, although this is probably negligible if you only put scraps of veg/teabags/paper into it.
How much water are you getting from this worm farm anyway? If you are putting it into the garden simply to dispose of it, you can probably just water the worm farm less and have less to worry about.--ChrisJMoor 01:41, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Moved from main page:

Continual discharge of incorrectly managed greywater can lead to cesspool conditions promoting the outbreak of Giardia in the community. In the past, outbreaks of Giardia have been the catalyst for local authorites expanding their sewage systems and improving the community health. Combined with this there is the added risk of food matter in kitchen wastewater providing breeding conditions for vermin.

I've not read anything about a connection between domestic or industrial greywater use and giardia contamination occurring in the community - the greywater would have to contaminate the municipal drinking water supply. Please re-add this content if suitable referencing can be provided.Natronomonas 22:57, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] My article

Can I add a link to this article on cheap ways to use greywater?

http://www.ozpolitic.com/gardening/water.html

Ozfreediver 07:07, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sources

This article needs to cite some sources. The governmental stuff an anon has been adding is great info, but we need sources. I added one to the end, to support the statement about a new law signed into effect in Montana. - Greywater 14:59, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Remove section

In my edit [1], I removed the section entitled "Tips on how to minimize health risks associated with greywater", because I think it violates WP:NOT#GUIDE --83.255.42.37 15:34, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

I copied that deleted content to Appropedia as it fits the purpose of that wiki. I also added a link to the site under external links. Thank you, --LRG 02:16, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] what about soap?

Are soap and detergents safe to discharge onto plants or soil? --71.107.217.63 18:06, 27 October 2007 (UTC)