As the worldwide demand for fresh potable water continues to rise, utilizing new and innovative methods of optimizing water usage at home is paramount. In the world’s ongoing quest for responsible water usage, greywater recycling has emerged as a promising solution.
A greywater treatment system for home has the potential to drastically reduce dependence on domestic potable water, for activities like watering plants.
Harnessing the runoff from your shower, bathroom sinks, kitchen sink, washing machine, and so forth, for non-potable usage within and around your home, is an excellent way to foster environmental responsibility and reduce your water usage. All it takes is a carefully designed and managed greywater system.
This complete guide delves into the intricacies of planning, implementing, and maintaining a greywater treatment system. Before you embark on a self-sufficient water management journey, review the following information to help you fully understand the key benefits, components, and steps of creating an efficient greywater system at home.
Table of Contents
What Is Greywater?
Greywater is the wastewater produced from several household activities, such as bathing, showering, laundry washing, dishwashing, and so forth.
Greywater often contains traces of detergents, soap, food particles, and other organic matter. Still, it lacks high volumes of harmful pathogens and pollutants in blackwater, making it relatively safe for non-potable use. For instance, you can use greywater to hydrate your vegetable garden, toilet flushing, and do household cleaning.
A greywater treatment system for home makes an excellent solutions for reducing demand on valuable potable water sources. They also significantly lessen the burden on municipal sewage treatment facilities by diverting used water from sewage systems, enabling homeowners to treat and reuse the greywater as they need.
6 Benefits of a Greywater Recycling System
From smart water conservation to a positive environmental impact, there are several attractive benefits presented by using a greywater recycling system. Given the ongoing advocacy for a greener future, greywater recycling emerges as a valuable and practical approach, offering effective water conservation while simultaneously addressing worldwide concerns about water scarcity.
To help you understand the reuse potential of greywater, we have detailed the key benefits of harnessing a greywater recycling system:
1. Positive Environmental Impact
Reusing your household’s greywater will keep it out of the sewer or septic system, and therefore reduce the pollutant load wastewater presents on our planet, such as contaminating local water bodies. This contributes to healthier aquatic ecosystems and enhanced water quality.
2. Effective Water Conservation
Greywater recycling involves treating and reusing water from your bathroom sinks, showers, bathtubs, washing machine, kitchen sink, and so forth for non-potable purposes. This enables you to effectively minimize your household’s water waste by up to 40% while synchronously lessening your reliance on freshwater sources.
3. Lower Water Bill
Recycling greywater lessens your household’s demand for treated water from your area’s municipal supply. This effectively minimizes your water usage, subsequently reducing your water bill as a direct result.
4. Resilience Against Water Scarcity
Installing a greywater treatment system for home will help you prepare for water scarcity. During droughts and other water restrictions, greywater systems ensure your household’s watering needs are accommodated with a substantially reduced dependence on the potable water supply.
This fosters resilience and enables you to preserve potable water for drinking, while still having a sufficient supply of non-potable water for different domestic tasks, such as plant irrigation and washing dishes.
5. Enhanced Plant Health
Treated greywater nourishes plants, promoting lush garden landscapes and vibrant plant growth. Typically, greywater contains small amounts of nutrients from your use of the water. Therefore using greywater on your garden, may reduce the need for synthetic and toxic fertilizers, which otherwise pollute the atmosphere and pose health risks to humans and animals. This may also help to reduce the cost of maintaining your garden!
6. Local Regulation Compliance
Installing a greywater system in your home facilitates adherence to local water usage regulations. Using a greywater system to address your outdoor water needs (such as landscaping and drip irrigation) may empower you to carry out these essential tasks while complying with water restrictions imposed by your local government.
This minimizes the risk of being fined by the local authority for non-compliance, and potentially makes you eligible for government incentives and grants.
Integrating Greywater Reuse Into Your Outdoor Water Management
You can take various approaches to repurpose greywater for outdoor use. As we’ve discussed, by choosing an appropriate method, you can effectively nourish your garden, lawn, and plants while simultaneously minimizing your household’s environmental impact and water consumption.
One effective method involves installing a distribution system, such as a drip irrigation system. Once collected, the greywater is treated and distributed through a drip irrigation network, delivering a steady water flow directly to plant roots. In many areas this is preferred over spray irrigation since it reduces human contact and therefore lowers any risk to health.
You can also incorporate smart irrigation controllers into your greywater system. These innovative tools can be programmed to release water in line with your preferred schedules. This can be altered based on weather forecasts, plant species, and soil moisture.
Whichever approach you take to collect and distribute greywater, it’s salient that you frequently check the quality of the water to ensure it’s being sufficiently treated for the use. By routinely monitoring the quality of your greywater, you can ensure it meets health standards for outdoor use and avoid damage to soil and plants. You can use a specialized test kit to review your greywater’s pH levels and nutrient levels and identify potential contaminants.
To maximize the effectiveness of greywater irrigation, you can implement mulching methods to improve water retention. Mulching is the act of applying a protective layer of material above your soil to reduce water evaporation and enhance plant health. This conserves moisture for plants, lessening the required watering frequency. You can use natural materials, such as a wood chip or straw mulch, to effectively insulate your soil.
Design Principles for a Greywater Treatment System
Creating a safe and efficient greywater treatment system requires careful planning and consideration of several design principles to ensure it ticks all the right boxes, such as minimal environmental impact, compliance with local regulations, and optimal functionality.
The following section details the fundamental elements you should consider when developing your greywater system.
Key Considerations for Greywater Treatment Systems
Implementing an effective greywater system requires comprehensive acknowledgment of several critical factors. From treatment methods to regulatory compliance, carefully considering these important elements will ensure the efficacy and sustainability of your greywater system. Here’s an overview of the key considerations to uphold:
- Site Assessment and Planning: This step involves identifying suitable areas for greywater treatment, storage, and distribution while acknowledging local regulations and guidelines.
- Treatment Methods and Technologies: This requires careful selection of treatment methods and technologies based on essential factors such as budget, available space, and required water quality.
- Storage and Distribution: This involves choosing appropriate storage tanks for your treated greywater and determining a suitable distribution method, such as a drip irrigation system.
2 Ways of Collecting Greywater
The complexity of your greywater system will depend on your needs, available space, budget and capability. Here are two common ways of collecting greywater:
- Manual Collection: The simplest approach! You can simply collect greywater manually by placing a container beneath your sources. For instance, you can place a bucket beneath your shower drain or sinks to catch greywater runoff that you can then treat and manually applied to your plants. No special plumbing, design or permits required!
- Integrated Greywater System: For a more advanced setup, you can integrate your greywater system into your home’s wastewater plumbing infrastructure. Greywater is directed to a dedicated treatment system within these complex systems before being applied to an irrigation system.
Components of an Integrated Greywater System
Here are the major components that comprise standard, integrated greywater systems:
- Diversion Device: A mechanism, such as a tee or valve, that directs greywater away from sewage lines and toward a collection point, whilst ensuring water continues to the sewage line if the greywater system cannot receive the water.
- Collection Point: A designated vessel, such as a tank, where greywater is collected.
- Treatment System: A chosen treatment method that decontaminates and purifies greywater. There is typically an initial screening or filtration step to remove particles or solid matter, followed by a system to remove pathogens and nutrients.
- Storage Tank or Dam: A vessel that stores treated greywater before being distributed.
- Distribution System: A network of pipes, hoses, or an irrigation system that evenly delivers treated greywater to its usage, such as irrigation for plants.
Step-By-Step Guide To Building an Integrated Greywater Treatment System for Home
Building a greywater treatment system requires extensive consideration, design, and planning. From conceptualization to long-term maintenance, we have laid out each essential step to help you establish an effective system.
1. Assessment and Planning
The initial step when implementing a greywater system is assessing your household water usage and identifying potential greywater sources (such as your shower, washing machine, and bathroom sinks). Most sources other than toilet blackwater may be considered. You may not want to use kitchen sink water unless you have an appropriate level of treatment to remove oils and food particles. You may find our Household Water Usage Calculator useful for this step.
By understanding the type and volume of greywater being produced, and how you wish to use the water, you can adequately pinpoint an appropriate treatment level.
Once you understand the source and volume of greywater, you can begin determining suitable treatment, storage, and distribution. When planning these factors, review your local authority’s guidelines and regulations to ensure your greywater system adheres to standards and permits. Remember, there are health risks which you must manage through appropriate treatment and use. The regulations, standards and permits are in place to protect you and your environment.
2. Collection and Diversion
This step involves special plumbing that will collect greywater from your selected sources, upstream of where it is combined with blackwater (e.g. toilet water). You will need to install a diversion device, such as a tee piece, positioned correctly, to direct water away from the sewer line and toward a collection point, such as a dedicated tank. In most areas a qualified plumber will be required to undertake this work. Check your local requirements.
Importantly, the diversion device needs to be designed so that should the greywater system become overloaded or fail, the water continues on to the septic or sewer system.
Ensuring your collection and diversion system is properly installed will prevent your greywater from mixing with blackwater, which is contaminated with harmful pollutants and toxins, including human waste.
3. Preliminary Treatment
Before the main treatment phase, you need to prepare your greywater by conducting preliminary treatment. This involves removing larger debris and any solid or particulate material through a basic filtration system, screen or sedimentation tank. In doing so, the risk of blockages is significantly reduced, therefore minimising future maintenance and problems.
There are various options available for this. The key point is that you are separating liquid from any solids that are in the water, and to some extent oils and other pollutant matter that might be attached to the solids.
A common approach at the domestic scale is a grease trap which will float out any oils (and attached particulates), followed by a lint trap, which filters out solids and particles. A simple cloth filter can be installed in a lint trap which can periodically be removed and cleaned. Such systems need to be sized correctly and positioned appropriately, usually by a qualified plumber.
You may also consider a media, or sand filter. These require careful sizing and design also.
You’ll need careful consideration for the maintenance required (which you will want to minimise). Think about where these devices are positioned to allow regular checking and cleaning.
4. Treatment and Filtration
After preliminary treatment, your greywater will need further treatment to ensure it is sufficiently purified and safe enough for non-potable use. The objective of this step is to remove pathogens and nutrients that pose human and environmental health risk.
One great option is to adopt natural treatment methods, such as biological systems, which utilize natural filtration processes to remove contaminants from the greywater. If you have space in the garden, you may consider the following ‘soft’ treatment approaches:
- A bio-retention basin;
- A vegetated swale
- A reed bed or vegetated wetland area.
Design for these systems is beyond the scope of this article, but they can provide a fantastic feature in your garden, and can effectively provide the pathogen and nutrient removal that you are looking for.
Alternatively, you can harness more advanced chemical treatment or UV light treatment options to cleanup your greywater. Again, beyond the scope of this article, but depending on the final use of the water, may be an appropriate choice.
Whichever method of treatment you choose, ensure you check local regulations and guidelines to ensure your filtration system is compliant with your authority’s standards.
5 Storage and Distribution
Once your greywater has undergone treatment, it needs to be safely stored. This will ensure your greywater is distributed in a controlled and efficient manner. You should determine the correct storage capacity required, with consideration for the volume produced (e.g. per day or week), and the usage rate. A calculation known as a water balance is used for this. Essentially, you need to determine the amount of greywater coming in to and out of the storage to ensure it is adequately sized.
There are many options for storage, including in-ground or above ground tanks, or constructed dams. Whichever you chose, you should complete the water balance and make careful consideration for easy maintenance, such as cleaning. From time to time, you may need to scour your tanks or dig out your dam.
You will also need to consider where the water goes, should the storage become full. It will need an overflow diverted to somewhere appropriate.
Once stored, you must align a distribution method with your landscape’s layout and specific water requirements. Opting for effective distribution methods such as a drip irrigation system or subsurface distribution system will ensure the efficiency of your greywater system while minimizing waste. Your water balance calculation must consider this, as well as other environmental factors such as evaporation of a dam. Whilst above ground irrigation is an excellent use of greywater (assuming appropriate treatment), some areas prohibit this through local regulation.
6 Maintenance and Monitoring
Ensuring you implement routine maintenance and monitoring will guarantee the ongoing functionality and efficacy of your greywater system. Conducting routine checks, such as inspecting filters, pumps, and distribution lines, and periodically testing, cleaning, and replacing necessary components will keep your greywater system working efficiently.
FAQs:
Are Greywater Recycling Systems Worth It?
The major benefit of greywater treatment system for home is the reduced demand on your water supplies (either utility or rainwater harvested). This means potable water can be preserved for consumption while grey water is used for other areas, such as outdoor irrigation. Greywater systems are particularly valuable in regions that have limited access to drinking water.
Is It Safe to Drink Greywater?
Although greywater can be treated, it still has the potential to host bacteria and viruses, making it unsuitable for drinking. It’s additionally important to point out that while treated greywater may appear clear and ‘clean,’ it isn’t potable and shouldn’t be consumed by humans or animals.
How Do You Make Greywater Safe?
To ensure greywater is safe, you can use the treatment methods discussed in this article. That is, initial screening or solids removal, followed by a treatment step which will reduce pathogen and nutrient loading in the water. You must also ensure that usage of greywater considers the level of treatment and therefore risk to human or environmental health.