Water recycling gaining momentum in California
As drought continues, state allows use of runoff from sinks, showers to save gardens
BERKELEY, CALIF.— Showering during California’s drought is a guilt-free experience for homeowners Catarina Negrin and Noah Friedman.
The Berkeley couple are early adopters of a home plumbing doover that’s becoming more popular during California’s record four-year dry stretch.
California, as do many states, long required all water used in homes to be piped out with the sewage, fearing health risks if water recycling is done clumsily.
Since 2010, however, the increasingly dry state has come around, and now even encourages the reuse of so-called grey water, which typically includes the gently used runoff from bathroom sinks, showers, bathtubs and washing machines.
As mandatory conservation kicked in statewide this month, forcing many of California’s 38 million people to face giving up on greenery, these recycling systems have become attractive options in new homes.
California Building Industry Association executive Robert Raymer rattles off the drought-conscious top builders that now routinely offer inhome water recycling.
California’s building codes are catching up as well, allowing owners of existing homes to create the simplest systems for the safest grey water without a permit.
So while others think about hauling buckets to catch stray drips from their sinks and tubs, Negrin and Friedman can relax: Each litre they use in the shower means another for the butterflies that duck and bob over their vegetable garden, for the lemon tree shading the yard, and for two strutting backyard chickens busily investigating it all.
Because pathogens swimming in untreated water can transmit disease if humans ingest them, most modern health and building codes have long made recycling it impractical. Many families did it anyway, without official oversight or permits.
Greywater Action, a group that promotes household water recycling and trains families and installers on the dos and don’ts, estimates that more than a million Californians had illegal systems before plumbing codes were updated.
But interest in doing it the right way has soared since April 1, when Gov. Jerry Brown ordered a 25-per-cent cut in water use by cities and towns. Palo Alto grey-water system installer Sassan Golafshan saw his site crash within a day from the surge in traffic.
The latest plumbing-code changes have enabled families to install these straightforward laundry-to-landscape systems without a permit. A handy homeowner can do it with no more than a couple hundred dollars of piping and parts.
More complicated systems, involving automation, filters and pumps, can top out at $30,000, contractors said.