Grow With the Flow: Legal Uses of Graywater
(Page 2 of 5)
March/April 2008
By Carol Steinfeld
Laws are changing fast throughout the country; if your state or town doesn’t address graywater, help pave the way by applying for a special permit.
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If you’re renovating a bathroom or building a house, consider installing graywater drainage pipes—even if you can’t or don’t plan to use graywater now. In the future, water recycling will likely become the norm as this resource gets too precious to throw away!
Three easy ways to treat carbon
Although plants can disinfect graywater, pouring carbon-laden graywater directly onto your lawn can cause odors and clog drip-irrigation emitters. Avoid this by keeping graywater oxygenated so fast-acting aerobic bacteria can consume carbon and pathogens. Specialists recommend three ways to treat graywater’s carbon: (1) add an air diffuser to your surge tank, (2) design systems that cascade water, or (3) simply apply graywater only to gravel, course sand or well-aerated mulch, all of which have lots of air spaces for aerobic bacteria to work.
A typical graywater system includes:
■ A surge tank to which all graywater first drains. This tanks equalizes and cools graywater flow so it doesn’t inundate the system with a deluge of hot water. A septic tank or 55-gallon drum, this also serves as a grease trap if the scum is periodically skimmed.
■ A filter to remove clogging particles such as hair. You can buy a filter (see "Resources," below) or make one with a nylon stocking. For grease and sludge, use a grease trap—essentially a box with a baffle that holds back scum so it can be skimmed out.
■ Porous substrate, fluffy mulch or aerated tanks to promote fast-acting aerobic biological decomposition.
■ Irrigation components such as perforated pipe and drip-irrigation lines that get graywater to the plants.
■ Thirsty plants to use up nutrients and provide root systems that support microbes, which decompose carbon and germs in graywater.
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