Grey Water – Less Harmful to Mother Earth
Grey water doesn’t sound very nice, does it? And what is it, anyhow?
Following on from last weeks blog for Earth day, this week we have a short blog on a small step we could all take to slow the destruction of the world as we know it.
Grey water is water we have already used for something else. Water in which we have washed dishes qualifies as does that which we used to wash the floor or which we collected in a basin from our shower. It can then be used to water our flower beds or veggie patch. It might even be useful if the garden path needed a wash.
It is of great benefit to our Mother Earth. Here’s why – it saves on using fresh water, keeps our energy consumption a bit lower, reuses water, is part of the ‘repair, reuse, recycle’ mantra of environmentalism and we get a ‘virtue hit’ from doing another little bit to help save the planet.
Here are some tips for using grey water.
Wash the dishes in a basin, not the sink, pour the used water into a watering can and water the flower bed or the herb pots on the balcony.
Stand a basin in the shower to collect the water and use it as above. Rather than using the fresh water in the toilet cistern, this grey shower water can also be used to pour into the toilet.
If you are handwashing delicates, resist the urge to pour the water down the drain and collect it for when it’s next needed elsewhere.
Tell your friends about grey water and how to use it.
There are other ways of saving a valuable resource like water – for example, getting a barrel to collect rainwater from a drainpipe is a good one. This ‘soft water’ can also be used in the garden. In fact, many of us remember when rainwater was deliberately chosen for washing hair as it was softer and gave the hair a better shine. We’re all now familiar with the ‘not letting the tap run while your brushing your teeth’ advice.
With the earth now on a knife edge it is up to us to take personal responsibility and do everything we can to save her for herself, ourselves, our children and our grandchildren.
If you wish to know a bit more about this issue you could do worse than read ‘Medicine for the Earth, how to transform personal and environmental toxins’ by Sandra Ingerman.