What I have learned from Grey Water Recycling

When I was in high school, I read a book by Shane Claibourne, and it changed my life. Claibourne told stories, and while he was a bit preachy, I was different after I read about his life and work. One of the things he talked about what living in a sort of a commune in Philadelphia called The Simple Way. In passing, he mentioned Grey Water Recycling (except I think he called it "gray", but I am committed to the Queen's English and if you don't like it, we can debate over tea when I get back from the theatre).

The idea is, instead of pumping clean, safe, filtered drinking water into a bowl so you can piss in it, you re-route your dirt water from washing dishes or whatever else, and use that to force-flush the toilet. Since I read this book, I really wanted to try this, more because I have a problem with pumping potable water into a bowl so I can have something in which to pee than because I think it will save water that will somehow get transfered to the billions of people who don't have access to clean water to drink, much less wash with or piss in.

The problem was, my family was less than excited about this idea, and then a couple months later I went to college, where of course I couldn't dismantle the bathroom I shared with fifty girls (and the occasional random dude).

But this summer, I moved into a house with four other girls (although there have been only two and three of us there this summer) and I bullied them into letting us have grey water recycling. And by bullied, I mean that I talked one of the other girls into it and then made an announcement to the rest of the house.

It's a very simple process, you just dismantle the pipe leading out of your sink and put a buckter underneath to collect grey water. After you use the restroom, you pour water into the bowl until it flushes, and then you have victory. After doing this for a few weeks, I have learned some interesting things.

1) Water is heavy. I never thought about how heavy water was until I started carrying our relatively small (about 3 gallon) buckets from my kitchen to my bathroom. I can't imagine having to carry all of the water used in a day over a long distance. It also now drives me crazy when I see a truck full of bottled water on a Spokane Freeway. It takes a ton of fuel to move that much weight.

2) We use a lot of water. It's astonishing how many times a day we empty those buckets, and all we do in the kitchen sink is wash dishes and drain things that we cook. I estimate that we go through upwards of fifteen gallons per day, in just the kitchen. Fifteen gallons doesn't sound like a lot, but it turns out to be quite a bit when you're carrying it from your kitchen to your bathroom. Especially when there are only two people in the house

3) It takes a LOT of water to flush a toilet. It's a little obscene really. Why can't we get airplane-efficient toilets in new homes? I've never heard of an airplane toilet getting clogged.

4) In just a couple weeks, I have learned to think a lot about things that used to be automatic. Before rising out something to recycle or pouring something down the drain, I have to check to make sure that the bucket isn't too full. It makes a slightly different sound when water goes down the drain, and it reminds me of how easy getting watter is for me compared to most of the rest of the world. This is good for me, I think.

5) It's kind of convenient to not worry about small food items going down the drain. We don't have a garbage disposal, but the small things will float down the toilet when it's flushed. It's kind of nice.

6) I don't think we're actually being that eco-friendly. But it's good for our attitudes, so that's a start, right?