Greywater

Left: a bottle of greywater from an office building before treatment. Right: greywater following membrane bioreactor treatment

Greywater (also spelled graywater, grey water, gray water) or sullage is all wastewater generated in households or office buildings from streams without fecal contamination, i.e. all streams except for the wastewater from toilets. Sources of greywater include, sinks, showers, baths, clothes washing machines or dish washers. As greywater contains fewer pathogens than domestic wastewater, it is generally safer to handle and easier to treat and reuse onsite for toilet flushing, landscape or crop irrigation, and other non-potable uses.

The use of non-toxic and low-sodium soap and personal care products is recommended to protect vegetation when reusing greywater for irrigation purposes.^[1] The application of greywater reuse in urban water systems provides substantial benefits for both the water supply subsystem by reducing the demand for fresh clean water as well as the wastewater subsystems by reducing the amount of wastewater required to be conveyed and treated.^[2]

Greywater, by definition, does not include the discharge of toilets or highly fecally contaminated wastewater, which is designated sewage or blackwater to indicate it contains human waste. The small traces of feces that enter the greywater stream via effluent from the shower, sink, or washing machine do not pose practical hazards under normal conditions, as long as the greywater is used correctly (for example, percolated from a dry well or used correctly in farming irrigation).

Overview

Example of a source of greywater in the household: dirty water from cleaning the floor

Urban decentralized greywater treatment with constructed wetland in Oslo, Norway

Greywater treatment plant with membrane bioreactor in the basement of an office building in Frankfurt, Germany

When greywater is mixed with toilet wastewater, it is called sewage or blackwater and should be treated in sewage treatment plants or onsite sewage facility, which often is a septic system. When it is kept separate, it may open up interesting decentralized treatment and reuse options. The separate treatment of greywater falls under the concept of source separation which is one principle commonly applied in ecological sanitation approaches. The main advantage of keeping greywater separate from toilet wastewater is that the pathogen load is much reduced and the greywater is therefore easier to treat and reuse.^[3]

Treated greywater has many uses, for example toilet flushing or irrigation.^[4]

Quantity

In households with conventional flush toilets, greywater makes up about 65% of the total wastewater produced by that household.^[3] It may be a good source of water for reuse, because there is a close relationship between the production of greywater and the potential demand for toilet flushing water.

Quality

Greywater usually contains some traces of excreta and is therefore not free of pathogens.^[3] The excreta comes from washing a person's anal area in the bath and shower, or from the laundry (washing underwear and nappies). The quality of greywater can deteriorate rapidly during storage because it is often warm, contains some nutrients and organic matter (e.g. dead skin cells) as well as pathogens. Stored greywater also leads to odour nuisances for the same reason.

Treatment processes

Greywater "towers" are used to treat and reuse greywater in the city of Arba Minch, Ethiopia

Underground greywater recycling tank

Most greywater is easier to treat and recycle than blackwater (sewage), because of lower levels of contaminants. If collected using a separate plumbing system from blackwater, domestic greywater can be recycled directly within the home, garden or company and used either immediately or processed and stored. If stored, it must be used within a very short time or it will begin to putrefy due to the organic solids in the water. Recycled greywater of this kind is never safe to drink, but a number of treatment steps can be used to provide water for washing or flushing toilets.

The treatment processes that can be used are in principle the same as those used for sewage treatment, except that they are usually installed on a smaller scale (decentralized level), often at household or building level:

• Biological systems such as constructed wetlands or living walls and bioreactors or more compact systems such as membrane bioreactors which are a variation of the activated sludge process and is also used to treat sewage.
• Mechanical systems (sand filtration, lava filter systems and systems based on UV radiation)

In constructed wetlands, the plants use contaminants of greywater, such as food particles, as nutrients in their growth. However, salt and soap residues can be toxic to microbial and plant life alike, but can be absorbed and degraded through constructed wetlands and aquatic plants such as sedges, rushes, and grasses.

Reuse

Benefits

Demand on conventional water supplies and pressure on sewage treatment systems is reduced by the use of greywater. Re-using greywater also reduces the volume of sewage effluent entering watercourses which can be ecologically beneficial. In times of drought, especially in urban areas, greywater use in gardens or toilet systems helps to achieve some of the goals of ecologically sustainable development.

The potential ecological benefits of greywater recycling include

• Reduced freshwater extraction from rivers and aquifers
• Less impact from septic tank and treatment plant infrastructure
• Reduced energy use and chemical pollution from treatment
• Groundwater recharge
• Reclamation of nutrients
• Greater quality of surface and ground water when preserved by the natural purification in the top layers of soil than generated water treatment processes^[5]

In the U.S. Southwest and the Middle East where available water supplies are limited, especially in view of a rapidly growing population, a strong imperative exists for adoption of alternative water technologies.

Safety

Greywater use for irrigation appears to be a safe practice. A 2015 epidemiological study found no additional burden of disease among graywater users irrigating arid regions.^[6] The safety of reuse of greywater as potable water has also been studied. A few organic micropollutants including benzene were found in greywater in significant concentrations but most pollutants were in very low concentrations.^[7]

Irrigation

Most greywater should be assumed to have some blackwater-type components, including pathogens. Greywater should be applied below the surface where possible (e.g., via drip line on top of the soil, under mulch; or in mulch-filled trenches) and not sprayed, as there is a danger of inhaling the water as an aerosol.

In any greywater system, it is important to avoid toxic materials such as bleaches, bath salts, artificial dyes, chlorine-based cleansers, strong acids/alkali, solvents, and products containing boron, which is toxic to plants at high levels. Most cleaning agents contain sodium salts, which can cause excessive soil alkalinity, inhibit seed germination, and destroy the structure of soils by dispersing clay. Soils watered with greywater systems can be amended with gypsum (calcium sulfate) to reduce pH. Cleaning products containing ammonia are safe to use, as plants can use it to obtain nitrogen.^[8] A 2010 study of greywater irrigation found no major health effects on plants, and suggests sodium buildup is largely dependent on the degree to which greywater migrates vertically through the soil.^[9]

Some greywater may be applied directly from the sink to the garden or container field, receiving further treatment from soil life and plant roots.

Indoor reuse

Recycled greywater from showers and bathtubs can be used for flushing toilets in most European and Australian jurisdictions and in United States jurisdictions that have adopted the International Plumbing Code.

Such a system could provide an estimated 30% reduction in water use for the average household. The danger of biological contamination is avoided by using:

• A cleaning tank, to eliminate floating and sinking items
• An intelligent control mechanism that flushes the collected water if it has been stored long enough to be hazardous; this completely avoids the problems of filtration and chemical treatment

The Uniform Plumbing Code, adopted in some U.S. jurisdictions, prohibits greywater use indoors.

Greywater recycling without treatment is used in certain dwellings for applications where potable water is not required (e.g., garden and land irrigation, toilet flushing). It may also be used in dwellings when the greywater (e.g., from rainwater) is already fairly clean to begin with and/or has not been polluted with non-degradable chemicals such as non-natural soaps (thus using natural cleaning products instead). It is not recommended to use water that has been in the greywater filtration system for more than 24 hours or bacteria builds up, affecting the water that is being reused.

Heat reclamation

Devices are currently available that capture heat from residential and industrial greywater, through a process called drainwater heat recovery, greywater heat recovery, or hot water heat recycling.

Rather than flowing directly into a water heating device, incoming cold water flows first through a heat exchanger where it is pre-warmed by heat from greywater flowing out from such activities as dishwashing, or showering. Typical household devices receiving greywater from a shower can recover up to 60% of the heat that would otherwise go to waste.

Governmental regulation

United States

Government regulation governing domestic greywater use for landscape irrigation (diversion for reuse) is still a developing area and continues to gain wider support as the actual risks and benefits are considered and put into clearer perspective.

"Greywater" (by pure legal definition) is considered in some jurisdictions to be "sewage" (all wastewater including greywater and toilet waste), but in the U.S. states that adopt the International Plumbing Code, it can be used for subsurface irrigation and for toilet flushing, and in states that adopt the Uniform Plumbing Code, it can be used in underground disposal fields that are akin to shallow sewage disposal fields.

Wyoming allows surface and subsurface irrigation and other non-specific use of greywater under a Department of Environmental Quality policy enacted in March 2010. California, Utah, New Mexico and some other states allow true subsurface drip irrigation with greywater. Where greywater is still considered sewage, it is bound by the same regulatory procedures enacted to ensure properly engineered septic tank and effluent disposal systems are installed for long system life and to control spread of disease and pollution. In such regulatory jurisdictions, this has commonly meant domestic greywater diversion for landscape irrigation was either not permitted or was discouraged by expensive and complex sewage system approval requirements. Wider legitimate community greywater diversion for landscape irrigation has subsequently been handicapped and resulted in greywater reuse continuing to still be widely undertaken by householders outside of and in preference to the legal avenues.

However, with water conservation becoming a necessity in a growing number of jurisdictions, business, political and community pressure has made regulators seriously reconsider the actual risks against actual benefits.

It is now recognized and accepted by an increasing number of regulators that the microbiological risks of greywater reuse at the single dwelling level where inhabitants already had intimate knowledge of that greywater are in reality an insignificant risk, when properly managed without the need for onerous approval processes. This is reflected in the New South Wales Government Department of Water and Energy's newly released greywater diversion rules, and the recent passage of greywater legislation in Montana.^[10] In the 2009 Legislative Session, the state of Montana passed a bill expanding greywater use into multi-family and commercial buildings. The Department of Environmental Quality has already drafted rules and design guidelines for greywater re-use systems in all these applications. Existing staff would review systems proposed for new subdivisions in conjunction with review of all other wastewater system components.^[11]

Strict permit requirements in Austin, Texas, led to issuance of only one residential graywater permit since 2010. A working group formed to streamline the permitting process, and in 2013, the city created new code that has eased the requirements, resulting in four more permits.^[12]

In California, a push has been made in recent years to address greywater in connection with the State's greenhouse gas reduction goals (see AB 32). As a large amount of energy (electricity) is used for pumping, treating and transporting potable water within the state, water conservation has been identified as one of several ways California is seeking to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.^[13]

In July 2009, the California Building Standards Commission (CBSC) approved the addition of Chapter 16A "Non-potable Water Reuse Systems" to the 2007 California Plumbing Code. Emergency regulations allowing greywater reuse systems were subsequently filed with the California Secretary of State August 2009 and became effective immediately upon filing. Assembly Bill 371 (Goldberg 2006) and Senate Bill 283 (DeSaulnier 2009) directed the California Department of Water Resources (DWR), in consultation with the State Department of Health Services, to adopt and submit to the CBSC regulations for a State version of Appendix J (renamed Chapter 16 Part 2) of the Uniform Plumbing Code to provide design standards to safely plumb buildings with both potable and recycled water systems. November 2009 the CBSC unanimously voted to approve the California Dual Plumbing Code that establishes statewide standards for potable and recycled water plumbing systems in commercial, retail and office buildings, theaters, auditoriums, condominiums, schools, hotels, apartments, barracks, dormitories, jails, prisons and reformatories. In addition, the California Department of Housing and Community Development has greywater standards and DWR has also proposed dual plumbing design standards.

United Kingdom

Greywater recycling is relatively uncommon in the UK, largely because the financial cost and environmental impact of mains water is very low. Greywater systems should comply with BS8525 and the Water Supply (Water Fittings) Regulations in order to avoid risks to health.^[14]

See also

• List of waste water treatment technologies
• Organisms used in water purification
• Reclaimed water
• Sanitation
• Water purification

References