Water conservation - grey water systems

[Tony F Dordogne]

This sort of follows on from a thread in the swimming pool section, not that we have a pool ..........

When we have our new kitchen and bathroom installed we're thinking of using the grey water (shower, sink, ?dishwasher) to water the garden by pumping it to a large citern sited at the back of the garden, top of a slope so that we can trickle feed the potager, fruit bushes etc.  The rest of the garden is covered by huge water butts (600 litres x 2) so we capture all water from roof, some rainfall etc.  But if we can utilise the grey water twice, it will make sure we have some green in the garden.

Has anybody any advice on grey water systems?  I heard somewhere that they are banned (?) but they are widely advertised in French gardening mags so I wonder whether that is true.

[Patf]

We lived in Southend before we came here and the local water board - I

think Thames Water -  was promoting the use of grey water for

gardens. They were offerring a sort of valve for piping from the

bathroom and large water butts for storage. They also had a leaflet

with advice but sorry can't remember what it said. Certain types of

water for different purposes. So apparently it's acceptable in parts of

UK. Pat.

[BJSLIV]

The problem getting grey water use accepted is that it runs contrary to the current policy of improving septic tanks etc. Many unacceptable systems currently capture toilet waste but dump sink and sink  waste into the ditches, they are replaced by a fosse toutes eaux. The aim is for chemically contaminated waters , soaps and detergents, to be captured treated rather polluting the environment.

So you might get away with a grey water system if you are on mains drainage, but if you have a fosse I fear that using grey water in the garden might mean an automatic fail.

No problem with capturing rain water though, that is  if you ever get any!

 

[chris pp]

If you feel like making the effort you can pass it through a reed bed system, constructed properly it should end up better than the water in the rivers. It's what nature already does (when allowed to) when water drains from fields and surrounding areas into lakes etc.that haven't had the waterside vegetation removed.

You can make it any way you like as long as it is a series, three is enough, that trickle one to the other.

Chris

[Tony F Dordogne]

Interesting replies, thanks.

Chris, reed bed totally impracticable because of nature of land and size needed.

Understand the environmental arguments but the idea is to seperate the water competely from the fosse waste, filter it and then re-run it onto the garden.  There is no run off onto the road nor into the local water system - we dont have one really way out here where we are, no chance of ever going onto mains drainage because we're so far out of the village so it looks like we will just have to pump and filter if we wish to reuse.

Back to the drawing board I think.