If you have ever spent much time thinking about the water in your home, it's likely that your attention has been focused on making sure that you have pure water that is safe to drink flowing out of your taps. What may not have been occupying too much of your time is where your wastewater is flowing. Clearly, some of the water used in your home will be drinking water, but there is a lot of other water which serves a purpose and is then sent to the drainage system.

Why send water down the drain?

When you empty the washing machine, flush the toilet or run a shower, often that water is sent straight to the drainage system when you have finished with it, but is that really the best use of all that water? Instead of pouring all of that used water down the drain, why not develop a wastewater design and find ways to reuse it around your property? Obviously, your wastewater isn't going to be safe to drink, but there are still many uses to which it can be put. The key to determining how you can use your wastewater is to understand the difference between grey and black wastewater.

Grey or black

Any wastewater design that you draw up must make a clear distinction between blackwater and greywater. Greywater comes from washbasins, showers and bathroom taps. It is likely to be the majority of wastewater in your home. Blackwater comes from locations such as the toilet, the kitchen sink, and the dishwasher. Both types of water can be treated and used, but as you might imagine, the uses for each and the amount of treatment required will be quite different.

Implementing your wastewater design

Greywater will not require a great deal of heavy treatment before it can be put to good use around your property. After disinfecting it, you could incorporate the use of greywater into everyday functions such as flushing the toilet or running a washing machine. Using greywater in this way relieves pressure on the mains water supply and reduces your home's dependence on scheme water. Outside your property, you could also use greywater for watering your garden and keeping your flowers well nourished. The uses of blackwater are more limited, but it is far from useless. Once it has been well processed, you will be able to use blackwater for a range of outdoor purposes, such as subsurface irrigation. Your local wastewater design service will be able to help you find the best uses for wastewater on your property.

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