When you take a shower or wash your clothes, what happens to the water after you’re done with it? It drains into sewers and septic systems, and eventually into the Bay. Seems like kind of a waste, given California’s ongoing battles with drought, as well as the fact that this by-product of cleaning our bodies and our laundry — known as graywater — can safely irrigate our lawns and our gardens. And there’s plenty of graywater to go around, too, as the average person produces 30 gallons of it a day.
However, this kind of reuse isn’t quite as simple to carry out as it may sound. For one, installing a system to recycle graywater is technically illegal without a permit. What’s more, this regulatory picture is changing; state legislation passed last year (SB 1258, Lowenthal) will soon present cities with a set of options for adopting new graywater standards. But perhaps most of all, the average person hasn’t really been fully exposed to the idea, its possibilities, and its stumbling blocks.
This article will help fill in the educational gaps outlined above. It will focus on policy and information - not narrative. Residents of the Bay Area and the officials who represent them will need to become more familiar with graywater issues, since they will soon be confronting these issues in their homes and in their city council chambers. They should not be unprepared for this dialogue, especially as water issues in general continue to become increasingly complicated and contentious across California.
