What Is Grey Water? A Beginners Guide To Water Conservation

There are ways to save water in times of drought. One of the most common recycling methods is the use of grey water.

What is grey water?
Grey water is any water that goes down the drain, except for toilet water. Excess shower water, sink water, laundry water, and dish water can all be saved and reused.

How is grey water reused?
Grey water is mostly reused in landscaping and for flushing toilets.

Why is saving water important?
It is feared that our planet is running out of water. As a whole humankind is becoming less and less sustainable on a daily basis. If we plan on leaving a greener planet to our grandchildren we must take steps now to insure sustainability.

Many grey water systems are currently available on the market. With no end in site to the drought here in Australia, its important to start taking steps to conserve our most precious of natural resources: H2O.

Greywater Diverter and Garden Irrigation System

Neco have a special offer on their Nylex Greywater Diverta and garden irrigations systems at the moment.  You can pick up this Nylex diverter for $495, 30% off the regular price of $699.

This grey water diverter will help you conserve drinking water and help give you a green garden during water restrictions by irrigation your garden with your bathroom or laundry water.

This kit includes 25 irrigation domes, pipes, clamps and fittings.

Features Include:

• Gravity-based irrigation - no pumps required
• Meets EPA health requirements and Australian wastewater regulations
• Control when you want your greywater on your garden by switching the unit on or off.
  
• Overflow system means your garden can’t get oversaturated with greywater

Visit the Neco website for details.

Get Grey Water to your garden without a water tank

Flo-to-Go is an ingenious system for getting gray water from your shower to your garden without the need to store it in a greywater tank. Flo-to-Go utilises shower water on the garden or lawn and is compact, discrete, simple & low maintenance.

FLO-to-GO is a compact and automatic fluid transfer system that helps create an economical grey-water re-use system that meets most customer’s requirements. Flo to GO meets current water restriction regulations and follows government guidelines, while keeping the product extremely competitive price.

FLO-to-GO is a simple household diversion system which is not subject to EPA Approval, however local water authority or council approval may be required. Approvals can be arranged by approved installer.

Check out the FLO-to-GO grey water system website.

Removing grease from kitchen waste water

Ewater systems has a great new oil and grease remove system for commercial kitchens. The Grease Guardian will remove grease and solids from water before it enters the sewage system, thus reducing the amount of grease and all entering into the sewage system. The Grease Guardian will help commercial kitchens reduce sewage blockages and improve the efficiency of wastewater treatment processes.

Brac grey water recycling system

The Canadian design Brac Grey Water recycling system takes grey water run off from your bath, shower and laundy and stores this water for use in flushing your toilet.  Why flush perfectly clean water down the drain when you can use grey water, it’s an incredible waste of a precious resource.  IMO, These kinds of grey water recycling systems should be be made mandatory in all new homes.

Not sure if the Brac units are available in Australia yet , but there’s plenty of other Australian grey water solutions around.

Chemical Free Electrolyzed Water Systems

eWater Systems sell a range of chemical free electrolyzed water systems which can be used for cleaning and sanitizing. The ROX electrolyzed water technology can be used in food preparation to clean and sanitize food, preparation surfaces, cleaning hands and cooking equipment.

The ROX water systems produce both alkaline and acidic solutions to assist in cleaning and sanitizing, but as both the acidic and alkaline solutions are diluted, their disposal in waste water systems presents no environmental problems.

Grey Water Guerrillas - Make your own greywater system

Here’s an interesting article on an underground greywater movement promoting the re-use of greywater from the shower and laundry.  The gray water guerrillas website is dedicated to promoting the re-use of water from your shower and laundry.  Check it our for some great pointers for setting up your own greywater system at home.

Garden Safe Planet Ark Laundry Powder

Planet Ark has produced a Laundry detergent that’s garden friendly.  If you’re pouring your laundry grey water water on the garden and are concerned that the high pH might and high phosphates might kil your plants, then check out this detergent from Planet Ark.

Platen Arks detergent has been independently tested by Sydney Environmental and Soil Laboratory for their suitability for use in irrigation (including watering the garden). The grey water was found to be suitable for salt-sensitive plants. and phosphorus-sensitive plants.

Check out the Planet Ark Website.

Domestic Grey and Black Water Recycling

Queensland company EcoNova have developed a world first domestic grey water recycling unit.

The NovaClear is designed to recycle all typical household wastewater (grey and black) to Class A+ reusable water quality - without further disinfection, such as chlorine or UV.

NovaClear� produces 2.2KL of Class A+ water, 24 hours a day using its patented MembraneSafe� technology.

Designed with support from 3 leading Queensland Universities, the NovaClear works similarly to the human kidneys; wastewater passes through membranes and contaminants are removed - resulting in safe water 99.9999999% free of pathogens.

Check out the NovaClear product page for details.

SepticTankInfo.com is a website with installation, maintenance and repair information for homeowners with onsite wastewater systems, including septic tanks, mound systems, aerobic systems, evapotranspiration (ET) and all their variants.

Bidegradable Detergents - Greywater Detergents

Here’s some great info on choosing detergents that are suitable for use in Grey Water systems from the SaveWater website. So far I’m yet to find a simple, but comprehensive guide to choosing a greywater friendly brand name detergent. Every Australian site I’ve come across point to the Lanfax Labs website but the information there seems to be hidden amongst a lot of scientific research.

If anyone’s found a user list of biodegradable and greywater friendly detergents, let me know and I’ll post it on this site.