In article ,
"Claude" wrote:

As an experiment, I caught all of the water coming out of the washing
machine this morning in buckets. To my amazement, I captured 10 buckets
from the wash cycle and another 10 buckets from the rinse cycle! At an
average of 8 litres per bucket, that's a helluva lot of water - enough to
water my modest suburban garden. My top loading Whirlpool 7244E has Small,
Medium, Large and Extra Large settings and I had it set on Large. So, since

You can check Choice for water efficiency of washing machines. Top loaders
(which most Aussies prefer) are not very water efficient. OTOH the wash water
from a front loader might be too 'dirty' (from detergent) to use on the garden.

we do about four loads per week, Melbourne's new regime which permits
watering only by hand on two days per week is not the problem I had thought
it was going to be, provided I can find the time to collect the water from
the washing machine. The detergent I've got is Duo, which claims 3.1 grams
of phosphorus per wash, supposedly half the maximum set by the industry's
own standard. No idea if 3.1 is acceptable for natives or not, but I'm a
bit nervous about it so I'll look for one of the liquid detergents at the
supermarket like Aware or Planet Ark. I could just use the rinse cycle
water, but that seems a terrible waste.

I use Aware at about $3.50/kg. Planet Ark is the same price and probably the
same stuff. If you are nervous about Duo, just direct it to the lawn.

I bought two of those $20 washing machine extension pipes from Bunnings. Just
a tip: make sure there is a connector ring on the end (creamy-white rubber).
Sometimes you find they're missing and then you have to be a bit creative to
attach the wretched thing.

--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

"Parenthood is like the modern stone washing process for denim jeans. You may
start out crisp, neat and tough, but you end up pale, limp and wrinkled."
Kerry Cue