Your Questions About Recycling

The Expert answers:

There are at least 2 types of water for recyling. Grey water & black water. Grey water is from baths/showers, dishwashing, laundry, hand washing. Black water is from the toilet. Grey water is recycled/treated to go back through your taps. I have never heard of black water being used for this purpose. It is called un-potable(not good for human consumption)& is used for construction sites, roadwork, watering fields etc. Sure hope this clears up things for you.

The Expert answers:

Water supply systems are not closed loop. The processed waste water is returned downstream and replaced with fresh water. So the waste stream does not replenish the reservoir. There are also costs involved in delivering the water and processing the waste water.

The Expert answers:

Because all waters has not good quality. When you waste water most likely this vital substance seep into underground and passes through salty layers and deteriorated its quality.

Niaz.r2709@yahoo.com

Msc student of hydrogeology
for more information you can refer to C.W. Fetter, 2000, Applied Hydrogeology, C.B.S Publication & Distribution, New Dehli-110 002 (India)

The Expert answers:

Throwing it away would be worse.

And generally speaking you do not have to rinse it out, because the recycling plant will rinse all of them in very hot water to remove any remaining paper and glue before they melt them down.

The Expert answers:

First reduce the amount of detergents that you use, then collect the waste water from your bath or sink etc – most houses remove waste water via an outside soil pipe that goes into the main drainage system – why not divert this into a rain butt/s. Then you can use the water on the garden. Waste from toilets must go to the system so that it can be purified by the digesters and then recycled back to you through the mains water supply, what do you mean you didn’t know that you drink re-cycled water in the cities.
On a slightly different tack, does one really believe that there is a shortage of water in this country – the true shortage is in the WILL to collect, store and use all the water that we get for free from the sky. Water that could be used for domestic uses as well as used to drive turbines to generate electricity via hydro electric power schemes. A few hundred years ago water power provided nearly ALL our energy needs, domestic and industrial,surely with modern technology we could still use this undervalued resource!

The Expert answers:

Hi – by waste water I’m guessing you mean grey water (washing-up, bath, etc), but you might be including rainwater too? For small scale application water-butts will do the job and kits are available from DIY shops to control any overflow of rainwater. Grey water can be piped into an under soil soak-away, but that’s not really conserving it.

On a larger scale you might want to think about reed and gravel beds with a pool/pond/lake to hold the ‘cleaned’ water (you might need further filtration/UV light treatment to make the water safe for personal use or even drinking. I believe it’s possible to buy a system of tanks containing sand/gravel that do the job too.

Hope this is of some help – have a Google around the subject and I’m sure there’s lots of Info available – and probably better than mine…
Good luck

The Expert answers:

It is not clear what you mean by “closed in.” Are you trying to say that there is no proper drain for your upstairs bathroom? Toilet water is not considered “gray water,” only perhaps the sink and a tub or shower water.

Recycling plumbing water usually implies a second set of piping from the appropriate fixtures to a collection location. It is not entirely clear what you are trying to do.

Let us say for the sake of argument that instead of taking tub water and letting it go down the drain you wanted to toss it out the window instead. There are 3 ways that you could do this without putting (too much) extra piping in.

First it is not impossible to siphon water over a hump (like a windowsill.) You only have to have no air from the top of the hump to the surface of the water (and a little more) You do this by sucking the water over the hump to get it started or first filling the pipe.

You could use a wet dry vac to suck the water up and then if the vac was higher than the window sill you could easily siphon it out.

Another way is to simply use a pump.

These are simple ways but they don’t allow you to capture all the water. More complicated would be to cut into the floor and interrupt the piping allowing it to drain into a tank with a pump inside. These are already available as something you would put in a basement for a laundry sink where your drain lines are above floor level.

The Expert answers:

Hiring an engineer.

Http://www.progressiveengineering.co.nz/products5c3f.html?p=effluent

http://www.environengg.com/

The Expert answers:

Yes. That would benefit the environment. In Europe they do it in some places. Burning body waste would however still have a environmentalist cost and I’m not so sure that cost is lower than what we do today.