Something I never see mentioned in these articles/discussions is the design problems. I’m a civil engineer who works in infrastructure maintenance, including sanitary sewers up sizing/repairing. The minimum design guidine for slope is 0.5% for sanitary sewers, but there are many old neighborhoods where the slope is as low as 0.3%.
The way those pipes continue to operate is the large volume of water that is sent through those sewers regularly, flushing away the solid waste.
If, theoretically, every house swapped tomorrow to a grey water system, we’d seriously struggle with blocked sewers and backflows regularly.
Until someone solves that part of the issue, this system isn’t practical for widespread adoption.
I suspect there is more grey water created in most homes than flushwater needed, and I’m not sure if even watering the lawn would use all the greywater a house might produce. Without doing the math, I suspect there would still be some amount of greywater moving to keep the pipes rinsed.
Something I never see mentioned in these articles/discussions is the design problems. I’m a civil engineer who works in infrastructure maintenance, including sanitary sewers up sizing/repairing. The minimum design guidine for slope is 0.5% for sanitary sewers, but there are many old neighborhoods where the slope is as low as 0.3%.
The way those pipes continue to operate is the large volume of water that is sent through those sewers regularly, flushing away the solid waste.
If, theoretically, every house swapped tomorrow to a grey water system, we’d seriously struggle with blocked sewers and backflows regularly.
Until someone solves that part of the issue, this system isn’t practical for widespread adoption.
Depends on the usage in a given home.
I suspect there is more grey water created in most homes than flushwater needed, and I’m not sure if even watering the lawn would use all the greywater a house might produce. Without doing the math, I suspect there would still be some amount of greywater moving to keep the pipes rinsed.