What is graywater?
Any water that has already been used in the home is gray water. Water that comes from washing dishes, laundry and bathing is gray water. Toilet water doesn’t count as we really don’t encourage reusing and recycling toilet water if we can help it.
Gray water is terrific for watering plants because it contains bits of compost. You can use your old bathwater or dish water to water your vegetable or flower garden and save money on city water, or save your well water for when you need it most.
You can also reuse gray water in other ways, for instance, you can use the water from your bathtub to water your car or floors. I know someone who uses the drain plug when she showers so she can reuse the water for her cleaning and watering the house plants and vegetable garden. Sometimes she even uses it to flush her toilets.
Some people think gray water is a bit icky, but really it’s safe. Plants absolutely love it! If you use organic soaps and foods, you don’t have to worry about poisoning vegetables with chemicals.
If you’re looking to save money on your water bill, consider reusing your gray water. We don’t think of water as something that can be recycled, but as one of our most important resources it should be at the top of our list.
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POSTED IN: Eco Simplicity, Reusing and Recycling, Simpler Thinking
5 opinions for What is graywater?
Jennifer
Aug 8, 2007 at 4:13 am
Great post about this topic from a family minded and thrifty perspective, very nice. Not enough people know about this option.
marye
Aug 8, 2007 at 3:40 pm
excellent post. Toilet water is not considered gray water anyway. I am trying to figure out how to connect a pipe to divert all the gray water to a collection tank so I can use it out side.
Jennifer
Aug 8, 2007 at 4:48 pm
Marye, good point. People are so weird about stuff. We were looking to put a composting toilet into te passive solar home we built and then decided at the last minute not to live in it, but sell it. We tried and tried to find buyers who were interested in composting toilets but every single potential buyer was dead set against it. They all said the composting thought was gross (or something like that). People just are not informed. That’s why this is a good post (and comment).
Dave
Aug 11, 2007 at 9:06 am
Deborah,
You could give Al Gore some great environmental tips :-))
Thrifty Karen
Aug 22, 2007 at 10:50 pm
Whenever I have water left from my drinking container, I use it to water the plants or I put it in the fish tank. I use the water from my kid’s little swimming pool to water the flowers. I haven’t saved any bath water yet though.
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