---
author: "Franco (nextime) Lanza"
date: 2018-01-19
linktitle: "Grey Water: don't waste it!"
categories: [  "docs", "info" ]
tags: [ "HTW",
        "save_water",
        "water_recycle",
        "grey_water"
      ]
next: /tutorials/github-pages-blog
prev: /tutorials/automated-deployments
title: "Grey Water: don't waste it!"
weight: 10
#authorAvatar: img/logo.png
image: img/greywater.jpg
draft: true

---

Grey water is all the wastewater you get in your house or office but toilet. 
Wastewater from sinks, showers, baths, washing machines, dish washers and so on is, by definition, grey water.

Grey water in usual home plumbing goes dispersed, and it's an incredible waste as even if isn't potable and polluted by 
detergents and other inquinants it can be usefull and let you save a lot of fresh potable water.

Many info in the wild suggest to use grey water for irrigation, i personally think that isn't a so great idea to use it for that as basically it can contain non eco-friendly detergents and other chemicals that aren't exactly good to be dispersed on the ground, but some good way to recycle it for good remains available.

## Toilet flush: a waste of potable water

An home plumbing usually uses fresh potable water for flushing toilets. You are using potable water to literally flush poo away: what a waste!
Any time you flush the toilet an average of 12 liters of potable water is wasted. According to google an average person flush a toilet 5 times per day:
this make up to 60 liters of potable water per day. 

A good and common suggestion is to put inside the toilet water container a bottle full of something to reduce the capacity of the container and then save up to 2 or 3 liter for every flush. That's a great suggestion, but you will continue to waste 9 to 10 liters in any case.
So, why don't just use grey water instead?


## The old manual way

The cheaper way to do it is to just put a bucket in your shower to collect some of the grey water from there and then use it to flush your toilet by pour over the bucket when needed in the toilet.

This can help to save some water everyday, but it's far to be the best way to do it as you cannot collect more than a little percentage of your grey water that way and obliviously isn't so confortable to do it that way.

## A better structured way

By doing some not so expensive plumbing modifications it's usually fairly easy to put a tank somewhere to collect all or almost all the grey water produced in your home in a more efficient and effective way.

A 1000 or 2000 liters tank it's usually the best choice for a 2 to 4 people house with 2 to 5 toilets, and it can effectively help you save more than 300 liters of potable water per day without change the way you are used to use your toilet at all. That's a 9000 liters per month!





