There was an article in today’s New York Times about people who illegally re-pipe their houses to take advantage of graywater (any water that goes down the drain besides the toilet). Here is a link to the article and some excerpts:
The Dirty Water Underground
By GREGORY DICUM
Greywater Guerrillas, a team focused on promoting and installing clandestine plumbing systems that recycle gray water — the effluent of sinks, showers and washing machines — to flush toilets or irrigate gardens.
To her, this house is as much an emblem of her belief system as a home. Although gray water use is legal in California, systems that conform to the state’s complicated code tend to be very expensive, and Ms. Allen and her fellow guerrilla, Cleo Woelfle-Erskine, are out to persuade the world that water recycling can be a simple and affordable option, as well as being a morally essential one.
They are part of a larger movement centered in the West — especially in arid regions like Arizona, New Mexico and Southern California — that includes both groups that operate within the law and ones that skirt it. The goal is the reuse of home gray water as a way to live within the region’s ecological means. Using their own experience and contributions from others, they have just published a do-it-yourself guide to gray water systems that is also a manifesto for the movement, “Dam Nation: Dispatches From the Water Underground.”
Obviously, the point of plumbing codes is for public health reasons – you wouldn’t want gray or black water getting mixed in with drinking water or even with bathing water. I’m not sure I’d be willing to fiddle with my plumbing any further than running a pipe directly from my kitchen sink into the garden. But even that would be an act of “guerrilla” conservation.
How far would you be willing to go to live by your principles? Would you break the law?
To answer your question, yep. Thankfully, though, our area has recently rewritten graywater laws to be far less onerous than they used to be so I don’t have to skirt anything.
We’re not handy enough to do anything like that and wouldn’t want to spend the $$ to hire someone to do it.
For us, it’s good enough to boil the potatoes and use the water on the vegetable plants, use rain water to wash the bathrooms and shower water for boiling the potatoes. It cycles around without plumbing knowledge our way.
If we were offered the services by someone knowledgeable enough to not ruin current plumbing as a gift, yeah…maybe.
@oldnovice – Surely it can’t be good to boil your food in your shower water?! I know we’re a step beyond the original article, but I was surprised by your comment.
I’m more inclined (were I a home owner) to go the rain collection route than grey water reuse. Toilet flushing would be perfect for rainwater.
Haha, I was going to say the same, Shawn — it reminds me of that Seinfeld episode where Kramer starts washing his lettuce while he’s in the shower… gross… But it’s a good question, Peas. I don’t know if I would break the law to go green.
I do, however, think I’ll start using rainwater and leftover pot water for my herb garden — thanks!
What a magnificent idea!!! I think I’ll try it out (having first convinced other half that it is a good idea). And of _course_ I would break the law – if it’s a stupid law, then it’s just begging to be broken!
http://www.caroma.com.au/products/index_profile.html
Thought you might be intersted in this link to a new toilet suite available in Australia in late 2007. It has an integrated handbasin which forms the lid to the cistern. Water from handwashing drains to cistern and is then used for flushing.
Also in Australia, there are several commercially available systems for grey-water reuse. The water is filtered, UV treated and then stored for reuse in washing machines and toilets.
I do not rework pipes but I use gray water to water my plants. i take the water from the dehumidifier and from my shower (I stop the tub and collect the wash water) for my compost bin and my herb garden. I think we must do what is right.
Seeing these simple, direct images (as opposed to extensive text and drawings) really helps people see and understand greywater. Thanks for the post!
I’m actually considering getting some of the “These Come From Trees” stickers to subversively place in bathrooms everywhere!
http://thesecomefromtrees.blogspot.com/
Check your downpipes. It can be very easy to put a diverter in which can be flicked back and forth depending on what is going down the plughole. We have diverted our shower water and bathroom sink water for years to our fruit trees. I find it ridiculous that it is okay to bucket the stuff down there but not technically legal to just divert the very same water with much less effort.
very interesting, but I don’t agree with you
Idetrorce