permaculture

[Scott Pittman <pci@permaculture-inst.org>]

I have always thought that the separation of grey and black water as more 
of a gesture than truly practical, unless you are using composting 
toilets.  I am much more interested in the black water because of the 
nutrient load that would be beneficial to perennials.  A constructed 
wetland or reedbed system has the benefit of treating both grey and black 
water and making it available to irrigate.  It also sequesters pathogens 
such as ecoli from the ground water.

Here in New Mexico, especially along riparian areas, the load from multiple 
septic systems is finding its way into the aquifer, polluting both well 
water and the river.  As population density increases this septic discharge 
is raising the water level and accelerating the pollution of the aquifer.

Even grey water has some nutrient benefit, sloughed off skin, potassium and 
phosphorous from soaps etc. all benefit plant growth.  Beware of high fats 
and oils in soaps, body conditioners, hair conditioners etc. since the fats 
tend to clog the soil and make it anaerobic.

I am using an evapo-transpiration system in a greenhouse with perennials 
that takes all the water, both black and grey, and turns it into tropical 
fruit.  This makes sense to me since I can not justify importing fruit from 
South America to have bananas on my breakfast cereal.

Scott Pittman


At 06:29 PM 4/25/01 -0400, you wrote:

> Spoke with our water bureau guy today about putting in a reed bed greywater
> system.
>
> The current policy around here is to put both grey and black water into a
> septic tank and out to a sub-terrenean leech field - standard stuff.
>
> He says that all that extra greywater into a septic helps it along because
> it dilutes the black water.
>
> Given that this works quite well ( according to him) the question he had for
> me was, why bother with the extra expense of a reed bed system ?
>
> I must confess that all I could come up with was a sputtered sort of " well,
> because it's, like, Cool !"
>
> So,  apart from that emminently worthy reason, I was wondering if some of
> you could chime in with other reasons for putting in a reed bed greywater
> system.
>
> .... Like, Please !
>
> Claude
>
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