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#16
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Grey water on gardens
"ant" wrote in message ... George.com wrote: "Chookie" wrote in message They belong at the lower end of your digestive tract, and cause problems if they get into the upper part. I will defer to your superior knowledge on this. Best way I think, in an urban area at least, to use grey water is to use it a second time around to flush the toilet. When my tank got very low a few years back, that's exactly what I did. I put tubs in the shower to get the water, then put that water into the cistern. running slap bang in the centre of hamilton is a big river that is never liable to run dry from which the city draws all its water. The major constraint on water usage is actually capacity issues of drawing out and treating drinking water, rather than low flows. Major upgrades of treatment stations are needed every so many years to keep pace with growing demand. Given such a scenario, it strikes me the best way to dramatically conserve water is not to put grey water out on to gardens but to use it twice over through the house with a low flush bog. Alternately a compost toilet and rainwater for drinking/watering the garden with grey water out in to the garden. A closed cycle like that is long term sustainably desirable. The reflow through the bog idea perhaps more straight forward and likely to reduce water usage in our city by around 30-40%. rob |
#17
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Grey water on gardens
"Chookie" wrote in message ... In article .com, wrote: * don't use on your vege garden. That is the official word, although lots of people do. As long as you are using drippers it is probably fine, maybe not for root veg From what I understand, the fear is that some of your intestinal bugs have made it into the water from the shower, or via your clothes, and will then give you gastro when you eat the vegies that they have landed on. Given that most keen gardeners shovel you-know-what on their gardens anyway, this seems a bit hysterical. I wrote to Gardening Australia once asking why a bit of human faecal matter was such a worry given Pete's enthusiasm for ordure, and they said they were just following what the water/health authorities said. They carefully refrained from comment on the realities of gardening! Simon Toze (CSIRO) has looked at some of the issues involved with grey-water recycling and health issues. http://tinyurl.com/f2wgq I think treatment is the key |
#18
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Grey water on gardens
"Chookie" wrote in message ... In article , "George.com" wrote: accepting this may in fact be true, what I wonder is if the greebies eminated from me in the first place, how would eating food soaked in these greebies further harm me? If they are inside me, surely the effect would be the same once they re-enter me in food? They belong at the lower end of your digestive tract, and cause problems if they get into the upper part. I will defer to your superior knowledge on this. Best way I think, in an urban area at least, to use grey water is to use it a second time around to flush the toilet. rob |
#19
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Grey water on gardens
George.com wrote:
"Chookie" wrote in message They belong at the lower end of your digestive tract, and cause problems if they get into the upper part. I will defer to your superior knowledge on this. Best way I think, in an urban area at least, to use grey water is to use it a second time around to flush the toilet. When my tank got very low a few years back, that's exactly what I did. I put tubs in the shower to get the water, then put that water into the cistern. -- ant Don't try to email me; I'm borrowing the spammer du jour's addy |
#20
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Grey water on gardens
George.com wrote:
"ant" wrote in message ... George.com wrote: "Chookie" wrote in message They belong at the lower end of your digestive tract, and cause problems if they get into the upper part. I will defer to your superior knowledge on this. Best way I think, in an urban area at least, to use grey water is to use it a second time around to flush the toilet. When my tank got very low a few years back, that's exactly what I did. I put tubs in the shower to get the water, then put that water into the cistern. running slap bang in the centre of hamilton is a big river that is never liable to run dry from which the city draws all its water. The major constraint on water usage is actually capacity issues of drawing out and treating drinking water, rather than low flows. Major upgrades of treatment stations are needed every so many years to keep pace with growing demand. Given such a scenario, it strikes me the best way to dramatically conserve water is not to put grey water out on to gardens but to use it twice over through the house with a low flush bog. Alternately a compost toilet and rainwater for drinking/watering the garden with grey water out in to the garden. A closed cycle like that is long term sustainably desirable. The reflow through the bog idea perhaps more straight forward and likely to reduce water usage in our city by around 30-40%. My water got used 3 times actually. The fresh stuff was my shower, then that went into the toilet cistern. Which all goes into a bio-cycle-type system, which then comes out as garden irrigation water. -- ant Don't try to email me; I'm borrowing the spammer du jour's addy |
#21
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Grey water on gardens
George.com wrote:
running slap bang in the centre of hamilton is a big river that is never liable to run dry from which the city draws all its water. The major constraint on water usage is actually capacity issues of drawing out and treating drinking water, rather than low flows. Major upgrades of treatment stations are needed every so many years to keep pace with growing demand. Given such a scenario, it strikes me the best way to dramatically conserve water is not to put grey water out on to gardens but to use it twice over through the house with a low flush bog. With such abundant water your outlook is no doubt somewhat different from many of us. Here in Perth we are looking at building a desalinator to extract drinking water from cockburn sound. There is talk of complete bans on watering gardens. Using greywater to flush the loo is great, but wouldn't use more than a fraction of our greywater. On the subject of using greywater for flushing, I saw a neat little trick in Tokyo. The sink in the toilet drains to the cistern, so as you wash your hands the water helps refill the tank for the next flush. |
#22
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Grey water on gardens
Not sure what has already been said, but I would not use grey water on any
natives. Soap detergents have phosphates in them, phosphates harm a lot of our native plants, therefore if you have natives (which we should all have over those crappy foreign "exotic" things) you may find they kark it. Cheers, Clint "Staycalm" wrote in message u... "Farm1" please@askifyouwannaknow wrote in message ... "George.com" wrote in message "Chookie" wrote in message From what I understand, the fear is that some of your intestinal bugs have made it into the water from the shower, or via your clothes, and will then give you gastro when you eat the vegies that they have landed on. accepting this may in fact be true, what I wonder is if the greebies eminated from me in the first place, how would eating food soaked in these greebies further harm me? If they are inside me, surely the effect would be the same once they re-enter me in food? Are you the only one who washes their hands in your house or uses the shower? Are you the only one who eats the veg from your garden? I don't think I'd like to have a salad at a house where they were using untreated grey water on their veg. Grey water would be suitable for citrus and other fruit trees wouldn't it? Liz |
#23
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Grey water on gardens
Clinton M James wrote:
Not sure what has already been said, but I would not use grey water on any natives. Soap detergents have phosphates in them, phosphates harm a lot of our native plants, therefore if you have natives (which we should all have over those crappy foreign "exotic" things) you may find they kark it. Almost all the plants in our garden are either edible, scented or decidous. Ideally a combination of the above :-) Itis very hard to meet these criteria with a native garden, and I don't suffer any major guilt episodes over our terraformed backyard. But no, natives won't like the phosphates. The banksias that are native to our area are particularly prone to fertiliser poisoning. |
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