ECOShift

Earlier this month California, often known for leading the way in pioneering legislative change to help protect the environment, released new updated greywater standards.  I thought it would be worthwhile to give you a quick update on what has happened in California as more and more states and provinces are looking at each other to see what to do as we realize more and more each day the importance of water conservation and re-use and the need to make changes.

The California Building Standards Commission’s new greywater standards went into effect on Tuesday Aug 4, 2009.  Dozens of people crowded into the Faulkner Gallery at the Santa Barbara Public Library to learn about the new standards and participate in a city-sponsored workshop led by Art Ludwig, a resident of Santa Barbara and a well known greywater expert.

Tuesday, or “California greywater liberation day,” as Ludwig calls it, came about as a result of many years of work and promotion by greywater systems advocates. Ludwig himself worked with the city of Santa Barbara as an expert in the field of greywater reuse and spoke at the Building Standards Commission meeting that passed the changes to the greywater standards in California.

Many people think of greywater recycling as something that is only for people who live in the city and pay water and wastewater charges to their municipality.  However, there are several benefits that can also be realised for those who live in rural settings. 

Let's take a quick look at some of the potential benefits in rural applications that I've come across from speaking with rural homeowners who are dealing with issues and concerns and looking at greywater recycling as part of the solution to some of their issues.

Well Water Levels

Conservation of water reduces demand on your well. I have spoken to many people who in certain areas struggle with water supply during the summer season. The fear, and reality, in some areas is that sometimes they actually run dry during longer periods of drought. By reducing your demand on the water supply by using a greywater system to flush your toilets you may be able to avoid, or lessen the likely hood of this situation. There are a number of factors that affect this, and not all of them are totally within a single homeowner's control, but if we all use less today, there is generally more available for tomorrow.

The City of Guelph, located in southern Ontario, has officially launched its Greywater Pilot Project to evaluate greywater systems in residential applications.  The program is designed to allow the City to gather data for analysis of greywater recycling as a key technology to help reduce water demand and wastewater flows.

 

ECOShift has been working closely with the City of Guelph since inception of the project to help define a greywater project which will provide valuable feedback on day to day use of greywater technology in homes with families just like yours.  The program will allow the City to gather important information on water and wastewater savings through the use of greywater recycling technology by installing 30 units in both new construction and select retrofit residential applications.   

Overview 

We all know the statistics surrounding water usage in the home.  If you are not familiar with them take a look at the pie chart below which outlines water usage in the home by end use. 

Environment Canada has gone to great lengths to evaluate and determine these average water usage statistics.  Not to dispute these numbers but there will always be those who want to see some practical numbers to confirm the data.  So let's take a look at a real application here in Cambridge, Ontario. The greywater system installed in our home was installed March 18, 2008 and went online that evening.  So, how has it affected our water consumption so far?  We'll, let's take a look and do some analysis of the data so far to see how it's performing.

The Data 

Below are the usage numbers from our water bills for the past 24 months for easy comparison.  Billing is based on a 2 month period.  The table below shows the Total Consumption in cubic meters for each billing period starting from July 28, 2006 until July 30, 2008.  The table also shows the Average Daily usage based on the number of days per period.

Period

Introduction

First, let's take a quick look at why it's important to even care about the benefits of something like greywater recycling.  With water being so easily accessible in our homes today it's easy to forget about conservation and why we should care about something like reusing greywater within our homes.  However, although water is very easily accessible for many people around the world, it's not so easily accessible for a very large number of people.  According to WHO/UNICEF 2005, over 1.1 billion people (yes that's BILLION) do not have access to safe drinking water.  Hard to believe isn't it?  Something that we sometimes take for granted and is one of the most precious resources for sustaining life is clearly not taken for granted all over the world.  And to think, we use drinking water to flush our toilets. 

Closer to home (for those of us in N.A.) we should also consider a few more facts about water.  Even though approximately 70% of the world is covered with water only 2.5% of that water is actually fresh water.  Fresh water is the water that is suitable for drinking and bathing etc.  Of that 2.5% of fresh water more than 1.5% of it is locked in glaciers which leaves less than 1% of the water in the world accessible through lakes, streams, rivers and ground water sources.

In N.A. the Great Lakes supply water to more than 33 million people (approx. 9 million Canadians and 24 million Americans) yet only 1% of the waters of the great lakes are replenished each year by rain and snow melt.  Consider also the fact that without water there is no life, human or otherwise, and it should be quite clear that water, and the responsible use of water, should be on everyone's mind.