Do you keep a bucket at the sink to collect grey water?

[burritos]

Over the course of the day, I collect 2-3 gallons of water. 1 I'll use to wash out the garbage disposal, the rest for our trees. Been doing it for 9 years, so that's about 6570 gallons of water. But the other day, I had to get a new bucket cause the old one broke. It doesn't take 6500 gallons of water to make a 2 gallon bucket does it?

[walterm]

Originally Posted by burritos

Over the course of the day, I collect 2-3 gallons of water. 1 I'll use to wash out the garbage disposal, the rest for our trees. Been doing it for 9 years, so that's about 6570 gallons of water. But the other day, I had to get a new bucket cause the old one broke. It doesn't take 6500 gallons of water to make a 2 gallon bucket does it?

We don't collect grey water, but we do collect the output from the basement dehumidifier and central AC (summer) and humidifier outflow (winter) and use that to either water plants or refill the toilet tank when flushing (and we only flush solids - "if it's yellow, let it mellow").

We also have rain barrels on the rear gutters to collect rainwater, also used to water plants.

[burritos]

Originally Posted by walterm

We don't collect grey water, but we do collect the output from the basement dehumidifier and central AC (summer) and humidifier outflow (winter) and use that to either water plants or refill the toilet tank when flushing (and we only flush solids - "if it's yellow, let it mellow").

We also have rain barrels on the rear gutters to collect rainwater, also used to water plants.

Yellow, let it mellow. If it's brown flush it down...

It's an old party, but feel free to join it.

[Shawn Clark]

I came across a link that said it took 24 gallons of water to make "plastic." I'm not sure what the basis is. The polymer plants I've worked for had their own captive cooling reservoirs so the actual water use per pound would have been very low (they sure didn't vaporize 24 gallons of water through the cooling towers per pound of product.)

[Rae Vynn]

So, you aren't reusing old buckets for this?

[burritos]

Originally Posted by Rae Vynn

So, you aren't reusing old buckets for this?

The bucket I used before fell apart. I have 2 old buckets that I use to scoop baby bathwater from upstairs. They sit full sometimes for toilet use, so they aren't readily available for the kitchen. Other than that, I don't have older buckets.

[icarus]

Paint stores (and painters) have hundreds of 5 gallon buckets that often go to the dump. Usually heavy duty, and often free.

Icarus

[qbee42]

I don't do this. Where I live all of our water is recycled. It gets pumped, used, and recycled to the same aquifer. Water is one of the few things we have in spades. Essentially the only cost to our water is pumping, which, of course, is a real cost but not a large cost.

Tom

[Shawn Clark]

Originally Posted by qbee42

I don't do this. Where I live all of our water is recycled. It gets pumped, used, and recycled to the same aquifer. Water is one of the few things we have in spades. Essentially the only cost to our water is pumping, which, of course, is a real cost but not a large cost.

Are you talking about on a boat? Or a residence? If the latter are you also paying for waste treatment? There is a charged and real cost associated with this. For my city the prices are nearly identical for unit volume water supply and water treatment.

Not that I'm disagreeing with the assessment of your water cycle. I'm close enough to a major river that other than wasteful lawn irrigation/outdoor use losses, the household water itself is simply going in a large loop from what I can gather. But I do have several hundred dollars/year incentive to reduce my contribution to the loop.

I'm not keen on trying to deal with gray water and what it contains. I really don't want to put it on my fruit/vegetables, trees, or lawn. And I don't want to put it in the toilet since the toilets I'm going to aren't designed to be flushed that way (and there ain't no way I'm putting that junk in the tank!) It would mean more toilet bowl cleaning...never a popular idea around the house.

A cistern for roof run off collection would be enough to irrigate my yard all summer, but rain barrels don't have the capacity to catch more than a fraction of that run off. The sprinkler system would have to be arranged to make use of a cistern.

[KK6PD]

Yeah, I have the Major Domo empty it every day.....

Will there be anything else SIR?????

No Jeeves!