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[Neko-chan]

...

 

[Beanie]

Found this...I thought it was pretty good. Hope it helps

http://aces.nmsu.edu/pubs/_m/m-106.html

 

[Toulle]

I think I would still think about some sort of sand filter or settling tank - even tho those really only work well with particulates. Maybe your soap is designed to settle or otherwise go inert very easily, so maybe a settling tank would be the thing.

I did an experiment with gray water when I was doing my undergrad. We watered with tap water, gray water from rinsing dishes and storm runoff from a catchment pond. We had acceptable biomass from the tap water, very good from the pond. This is because of the chlorine in the tap water mostly I suspect.
The plants watered with untreated graywater died, if they sprouted at all. I suspect this was from the grease and salt in it. Any graywater system would have to take that into account.

 

[k15n1]

1. Gray water becomes black water very quickly
2. Most soap contains enough borax to ruin your garden

 

[JRmom]

It's illegal here in Florida to use grey water, which kinda teed me off when I found out. But after thinking about it, our water table is very close to the surface, so there's not much filtering before it gets right into our water supply.

 

[Sunny]

On my aunts farm which has two houses on the property.. Both houses, the kitchen sinks are drained to a little culvert that runs around the edges of the garden.. Darn if the grass around it says green and lush all through the hot summers there. Nothing dies from it.. Its been that way for about 100 years. And she uses the rinse dish water on the house plants or seedlings that she is starting, and all grow well..

So I would just try your grey water on a extra spare plant or a hidden part of the lawn to see what it does. I guess it depends on how dirty your dishes are and what kind of soap is used..

 

[AnnaRaven]

1. Gray water becomes black water very quickly
2. Most soap contains enough borax to ruin your garden

What is black water?
Does something like Dawn kill the garden?

 

[dragonlaurel]

Make sure it cools down before it gets to the plants and excess grease would not be good for them. Otherwise- I'd water stuff with it.

 

[Marianne]

1. Gray water becomes black water very quickly
2. Most soap contains enough borax to ruin your garden

What is black water?
Does something like Dawn kill the garden?

Black water is what's flushed down the toilet. It's interesting that dilute urine is a good fertilizer and many people use humanure (people poop), too.

Dawn is great stuff! Too high a concentration might kill or at least kind of damage the plants, but I doubt that you'd have that much Dawn in your dishpan. If in doubt, dump it in your garden soil (not on the plants) or add a bit more water.

I don't know about the borax being in most soap. Unless this is a soap vs. detergent thing. I use Dawn pure essentials. On the bottle it says it contains biodegradable surfactants. I use it for non toxic wasp spray (strong mix) and non toxic bug spray in the garden (light mix).

My mother leaves a small dishpan in one of her kitchen sinks. When she rinses her hands, the water goes into the dishpan, then out to a flowerbed.

 

[k15n1]

1. Gray water becomes black water very quickly
2. Most soap contains enough borax to ruin your garden

What is black water?
Does something like Dawn kill the garden?

Gray water comes from sinks, clothes washers, and showers. Black water eminates from toilet stools. My point is that the stuff in the gray water almost immediately begins to break down and will smell terrible within the day. When I first started researching gray water systems, I imagined saving the water and using it gradually. I found that it was not recommended by those with experience.

I have not personally checked the ingredients of all brands of soap. I've read that the type of soap you use matters. Apparently sodium-based compounds and borax are a problem:

Next, look for the words boron, borate or Boroteam. Boron rarely kills
plants, but it will cause an ugly leaf-margin burn, and can be a real
problem with alkaline soils in desert areas. Worse still, once boron is
added to soil, it is not easily leached out. So skip all detergents with boron. [1]

I found other sources with similar warnings [2].

1. http://robertkouriksgardenroots.blogspot.com/2008/04/greyt-detergents-for-grey-water-systems.html
2. http://www.delicious.com/neffk/graywater