Greywater
After several years of record-breaking droughts, Australians are now more aware than ever of the need to conserve water through smarter use. Greywater offers an additional resource to help people go one step further in the effort to save water.
By using greywater on gardens and lawns, a household has the potential to save between 50,000 and 100,000 litres of drinking water a year.
What is Greywater?
Greywater is generated from using your shower, bath, laundry, handbasin and kitchen (only when going to a greywater treatment system) – it doesn’t include water from the toilet, urinal or bidet.
How can I use Greywater?
We don’t require water of drinking quality to do everything around the home. Watering the garden and flushing the toilet, for example, are just as effective using greywater. By capturing some of our wastewater and re-using it we can reduce the strain on our town water supply and save money on our water bills.
Using greywater can be as simple as bucketing it out by hand into the garden (cheap but a little labour intensive), or as complex as installing an automatic diversion, treatment and irrigation system (very convenient but more costly to set up).
Manual bucketing of greywater for residential premises in sewered areas does not require prior approval from Council. Prior approval from Council is required if you want to install a greywater diversion device. However, if you live in a single, residential premises connected to the sewer, Council approval is not required if you meet the conditions listed under Section 3.2 of the NSW Guidelines for Greywater Reuse in Sewered, Single Household Residential Premises please refer to Guidelines.
If you want to re-use greywater inside the home, treatment systems are necessary and Council approval is required to do this.
For further information, please refer to (link to Sewage Management On-Site – Approvals and regulations) or contact Environmental Services, Development and Environmental Services Group on
(02) 4429 3598.
Is it safe to use Greywater?
Yes. If it is used in the appropriate way. Grey water can contain certain disease-causing micro organisms, fats, oils, detergents, salt and other things derived from household and personal cleaning activities. However, if properly used, these pose little threat to health and the environment.
An effective way to improve the quality of your greywater is to change the type of detergents, soaps and cleaning products you use in the house. You can find out about this in more detail by clicking on the links to the right.
We have compiled a comprehensive information resource (see links to the right), which takes you through, step by step, the issues and safeguards involved in using greywater. It certainly requires a little more effort from householders to organise greywater re-use but the benefits can be worthwhile.