Greywater Solutions for Home Reuse

[nickindustrial]

hey guys,

Im an industrial design student. Have recently taken on a project involving the potential reuse of greywater. For those that don't know what greywater is, to put it plainly, its 56% of all waste water that is treated by sewage plants. In general its all water that leaves the home excluding toilet water and kitchen sink water.

At the moment greywater is used mostly for irrigation purposes, which is already reducing the amount of potable water used. But i want to devise a product or system that can put this water back in circulation of the home to reduce the surge of water from the grid.
Any thoughts and recommendations into existing or technologies that my assist this project would be highly appreciated.

look forward to hearing from you.
Thanks, nick

 

[pantaz]

Graywater Reuse and Rainwater Harvesting (Colorado State University)
http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/natres/06702.html

Greywater Reuse
http://www.toolbase.org/Technology-Inventory/Sitework/greywater-reuse

Grey Water Central
http://www.graywater.net/

Plenty more links here -- http://www.google.com/search?q=greywater+reuse

 

[Moonbear]

I didn't realize residential housing had separate blackwater and graywater waste lines, though I was pretty sure that in trailers, which do, the graywater included the kitchen sink...basically everything but the toilet water.

Regardless, in the "old days" people used to use the wastewater from doing laundry to water the garden. It's an efficient use of the water plus the detergent in it helps deter pests (our greenhouses still use a little detergent mixed in with an ethanol and water solution instead of commercial insecticides...mostly because of liability issues with students in the greenhouses...it works really well, and I've used it to treat infested plants as well), so it makes good sense to use it for irrigation if one can separate out the wastewater streams.

 

[berkeman]

Nice response by pantaz. I'm going to move this thread to General Engineering for now, to get it some additional views.

 

[nickindustrial]

thanks a lot for the help guys, I am pretty new to this forum but every bit helps