Grey laundry water for garden watering? - Page 15

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I was hoping to get some advice regarding the use of grey water from
the laundry for garden watering – mainly lawns.
I’m not at all asking about the legality of it, which is not at all an
issue. Rather I am trying to find out whether or not the grey laundry
water is likely to stuff up my lawns. I use different sorts of washing
powders, switching between different brands, but I typically add:

NapiSan OxyAction MAX

http://www.vanishstains.com.au/whats_new.shtml#1

Is this sort of grey water ok for lawn watering?
What if this grey water was used for deep soil irrigation near plants
and shrubs? (This is much less of an issue at this stage).
I really would appreciate some advice. Thanks.

--

i'm instinctively inclined to worry about the addition of napisan, so i
think you're going to have to stop doing that! it has a fearsome reputation
for stain removal, so i naturally doubt you want it on your garden.
bleaches, salts & whatnot should NOT go on your garden as they will poison
the plants.

any low- or no-salt and low- or no-phosphorus powder should be fine on a
lawn, however, there are lots of brands available now that are
more-specifically designed to end up as grey water, so go with one of those
& ditch the napisan outright.

i'm always spruiking "aware" (planet ark) washing powder because it's a
great product & easy to get at almost any supermarket & not expensive, and i
can confirm from personal experience that it won't do any harm at all. so
that would be my personal recommendation.

if you use a non-toxic product such as "aware" & are mindful of using the
greywater within 24 hours, you shouldn't have any problems of any kind.
(it's fine for your garden after 24 hours, but gets very germy &
surprisingly smelly, so you need to be aware of not creating a health hazard
before it goes into the ground! :-) most people just use either a home-made
collection point & then send it straight out, or just direct it straight out
(eg flexible pipe directed through the wall or window), or you can have a
plumber install a pretty spectacular certified setup, but you still need to
send it out within 24 hours or else send it down the drain - the plumber
set-ups will have a drain diversion [which seems a waste to me, but is
necessary for sanitary reasons if you live in town & have a lot of washing
to do but it's too wet to water the yard that day] ).
kylie

 X-No-Archive:

I was hoping to get some advice regarding the use of grey water from
the laundry for garden watering – mainly lawns.
I’m not at all asking about the legality of it, which is not at all an
issue. Rather I am trying to find out whether or not the grey laundry
water is likely to stuff up my lawns. I use different sorts of washing
powders, switching between different brands, but I typically add:

NapiSan OxyAction MAX

http://www.vanishstains.com.au/whats_new.shtml#1

Is this sort of grey water ok for lawn watering?
What if this grey water was used for deep soil irrigation near plants
and shrubs? (This is much less of an issue at this stage).
I really would appreciate some advice. Thanks.

There is a chap whose sig block is George.com from NZ and he has made up a
grey water system for watering his lawns.  If you can attract his attention
he may be able to help you out with the necessary info.

 

don't drag me into this debate, I'm just an innocent bystander. I will
provide my expertise if someone answers my post about community gardens in
Sydney.

My experiments with waste water was limited to our summer drought. 4 +
months of fa water so I used the water from the washing machine on to the
lawn by way of a surge tank (old rubbish bin) and scavanged washing machine
pipe joined together with a gravity fall off the back deck. The system
worked well. I was initially worried about salt build up from the washing
powders. I brought some non-phosphorous powder but I also used some low(ish)
phosphorous powder as well. Upon reflection I was not too worried about salt
levels in the powder. My problem was a long drought by local standards. I
simply wanted to try and nurse the lawn through. 2-3 loads of washing
machine water a week was not enough to keep the lawn green but it did
mitigate some of the effects of the long drought. We have heaps of rain in
winter so salts in the soil will be washed through by constant rainfall.
Since mid april we have had roughly 3-4 inchs I guess. That is enought to
kick start growth and rains will continue through the winter. As a stop gap
measure it worked okish. year round however the salts in the washing powder
would worry me.

Now, if someone wants to answer my Sydney query:
Does nayone living in Syndey know of any community/permaculture/organic
gardens within the sydney city?

A woman from NZ is over in your city sometime shortly and is interested in
visiting such gardens to see how it is done.

Any contacts or websites is appreciated

rob

 

I would encourage you to use your greywater on the lawn (or scrap the lawn -
but that is another story).  Many cleansing products are fairly harmless but
there are some potential problems.  Some even have a mild nutrient effect from
phosphourus compounds.

One problem is that some contain sodium salts in fair concentrations, if this
were allowed to accumulate without being leached away it could sodize your
soil.  Too much sodium displaces necessary minerals (potassium, magnesium,
calcium, etc) which is harmful to plants.  This is particularly a problem with
dishwasher powder that typically has much washing soda (sodium carbonate) in
it.   So you should avoid such products or only use greywater from them if it
will be well diluted.

The other problem is that antibacterial products like napisan will kill
bacteria (duh!) in your soil, which is undesirable as in this natural
environment they have a positive role.  The modern super-clean attitude where
every microbe should be dead is not right for the garden (nor for humans
either but that is yet another story).  Consider if napisan is important to
your normal wash or could you and your lawn do without it.

There are web pages devoted to this issue which contain lists of laundry
products and ingredients or ratings for them.

David

 On Thu, 1 May 2008 01:22:16 -0700 (PDT), Gas Bag


Here's a few links which may bear some light on this question.

http://www.lanfaxlabs.com.au/laundry.htm

http://www.lanfaxlabs.com.au/gardens.htm

These were found on this page of the "Gumnuts" blog


to consider using water from washing machines to irrigate lawns and gardens.
The question is - is it safe to do so?

machine, the soils in your garden and the area available to distribute the
water.  The fact is that applying laundry water indiscriminately can seriously
damage plants and soil structure.

potentially harmful.  More often than not it's the sodium content that
determines how much laundry wastewater can be safely applied to a given area.

from the work of Dr Robert A. Patterson who is the Director of Lanfax
Laboratories based in Armadale, NSW.   Dr Patterson is regarded as an expert on
the interactions between recycled water (including grey water from laundries)
and soils.

you plan how best to distribute grey water on lawns and gardens.  The site
itself is a bit confusing to navigate but the following two sections should
provide most of the information you need.

of the liquids (detergents) when compared with the powders is that liquids
present less of a sodium hazard than the powders”.

essential plant nutrients in greywater and a lot of nasty sodium.  Most of the
benefit you see from using greywater is from the water, not what is in
it.......so greywater is not a fertiliser and never will be!"