Grey water from washing machine

 As an experiment, I caught all of the water coming out of the washing
machine this morning in buckets.  To my amazement, I captured 10 buckets
from the wash cycle and another 10 buckets from the rinse cycle!  At an
average of 8 litres per bucket, that's a helluva lot of water - enough to
water my modest suburban garden.  My top loading Whirlpool 7244E has Small,
Medium, Large and Extra Large settings and I had it set on Large.  So, since
we do about four loads per week, Melbourne's new regime which permits
watering only by hand on two days per week is not the problem I had thought
it was going to be, provided I can find the time to collect the water from
the washing machine.  The detergent I've got is Duo, which claims 3.1 grams
of phosphorus per wash, supposedly half the maximum set by the industry's
own standard.  No idea if 3.1 is acceptable for natives or not, but I'm a
bit nervous about it so I'll look for one of the liquid detergents at the
supermarket like Aware or Planet Ark.  I could just use the rinse cycle
water, but that seems a terrible waste.

 
when you get to thinking about what you could do with it instead, it is
indeed a terrible waste :-) i'd be nervous about 3.1 too, seeing as you can
now get 0g powders.

i was recently seen here singing the praises of aware powder (no
phosphates). because of the bizarre (to state it mildly) construction of my
house, the washing machine cavity is set up to just pump the water straight
out the wall (through a pipe, of course ;-) and down to the garden. i just
pump it straight out this way and have seen no problems at all. the only
thing i need to do which is still not done (gahhh!)  is to change the pipe
so it's longer & more flexible, in order to use it more effectively, as atm
it does not reach many places, so effectively much of this water is probably
"wasted" anyway :-)

my mum lives in a slightly more normal house, & connects an ordinary garden
hose to the washing machine outlet, hose goes out the door onto the yard,
then she just moves the hose around at whim. your best bet is probably
something like this.

another idea if you're muscly, organised & don't have a handy door or window
(or hole in the wall ;-) near the washer, is to pump it into a very large
container or two, then perhaps either siphon or bucket it out. i am thinking
though that there'd be an easier solution than this with a bit of applied
thought. you can now buy large water containers on wheels (i saw one with a
tap & short hose attached, even) so there is certainly going to be some
solution available to you.
kylie

 

in fact, it's the larger size of garden hose, not the ordinary kind. i mean,
it's quite ordinary, but not totally ordinary. well, in fact not ordinary at
all - rather good in fact. yet not quite extraordinary.

i might stop now while i'm still amusing myself, but before i bore others.
<g>
kylie

 


Heh, heh, I found it very amusing, Kylie.  Always room here for a bit of
wit.

 

Oh no, please continue.  It was just starting to get linguistically
and Goon-ishly interesting!

Tish