FREMA
WATER RECYCLING
Water recycling is everybody’s concern.
PRESERVE WATER!
But it becomes even more pressing, when you live off grid.
1. THE WORLD’S WATER SCARCITY PROBLEM.
We need to stop and think about the global warming event. At present 50% of the world population is water poor. That means they do not have sufficient access to potable, safe water. The international experts believe that this will reach 70% in the near future. The global warming is most evident in the very slow warming of the oceans. That has a huge effect on the evaporation rate of the water and it means more moisture in the air, therefore more turbulence, more violent and extreme weather. In some areas, most likely the tropics, more severe rain and frequent flooding events. Yet in some further inland areas, like away from the coast lines, plus the already dry and desert like areas, (In the region 18 to 39 degrees latitude both north and south), this means extensive and frequent droughts. Below is a map of all the deserts and they, plus the immediate surroundings, will get drier. (The map creators forgot No 11- Australia {deserts like: Great Victoria, Sandy, Tanami, Simpson, Gibson and more deserts}). When we are talking about deserts, everybody thinks about huge sandy areas like the Sahara.
But only 20% of the desert areas are covered with sand, yet all deserts have people, animals and plants living there. Click on the link above, because it indicates how the climate change is making life more difficult.
We need to prepare ourselves and reduce our water consumption, and save water.
And I think it would be silly to ignore that.
I can teach, and show, you how to do that. I can supply all the equipment and you can put it together
2. WHERE DO WE USE WATER IN OUR HOMES?
I think the simplest start is to make a list.
- We drink water.
- We cook with water.
- We regularly wash our hands.
- We clean the dishes.
- We shower and carry out hair and teeth hygiene.
- We wash our clothes.
- Then the toilet needs to be flushed.
- And then we may ??????
- hose down the path or patio. (hard surfaces)
- wash our car or boat.
- water the garden.
- cleaning windows.
- top up the swimming pool.
- and perhaps some uses I forgot.
In the above list there is a pattern.
The lines 1 and 2 are essential for a healthy life. So, we leave them alone.
Following are five lines that can be adjusted for a better outcome. I have a separate accordion for each line.
Finally, number 8, there is a list under And. Some of those could be eliminated altogether.
3. WASHING HANDS.
Washing hands. I had two high school students give me a hand with a job on the property. When it was time to go home, it was washing hands time. The boys were left to do that. I was outside and I heard the water pump running on and on, for about 10 minutes. It was obvious they did not know how to wash their hands.
How should we wash hands? We are ready, turn on the tap at a moderate rate (not full bore) and wet your hands then turn off the tap. This will take 3-5 seconds. Now apply soap and rub your hands and make the soap lather thoroughly to cover the whole hands. This might take 15-30 seconds, but no water usage during that time. Now we turn on the tap, moderate rate again, and rinse off the foam. This might take 6-10 seconds. Finally we dry the hands with a towel. Job done.
I am showing a picture taken with a microscope of the human skin, shown below. Running water does not remove bacteria from between those flakes. It happens when we rub the lather on the hands, with a little water, which due to the lower surface tension, can penetrate under those flakes and remove the bacteria. Then at the end the water washes the bacteria containing foam away.
A tap can run at a water rate of 4L/min. So we can wash hands using 1.0L against conventional 3.5 L, a saving of 2.5 L. If we wash hands 10 times per day, we use 10L/day/person and that is a saving of 25 L/day/person.
4. CLEANING DISHES.
Cleaning dishes is already an item of public discussion.
- Present day procedure. Most people fill the sink full of warm water and then after they wash the dishes they rinse the soap off the dishes in the adjoining sink. A huge waste of resources.
- The motto of the manufacturers of the dishwashers. They claim that they are more efficient, because the water is recycled. And that is true.
- But we can still do better.
- Rinsing away the soap is not necessary. Soap is a harmless substance, we spread it all over our body. Ingesting a minute amount left on a dry dish does no harm. So we eliminate that.
- Filling the sink with warm water in overdoing it. I put about 5cm of cold water in the sink and I put the dishes in one by one and use a brush to scrub the surfaces. The food residue, I just ate, washes away and I remove the piece to let it dry.
- Also most people use warm or even hot water. That is an enormous waste of energy. There is no need for that. I wash in cold water. But if there is something fried or fatty I boil half a jug of water and add it to the cold. That works fine.
- I do not flush the water away after breakfast or even lunch. I only do that if it is visibly dirty. So I may use one or two 5cm fills of water in my sink.
- A number of times a day I take the tea towel and wipe the almost dry dishes. That removes any soapy residue that is of concern for some people.
The amount I use in the sink is just 6L. A dishwasher uses between 10 and 17L/day, so yet another saving of 4 to 11L/day.
5. TAKING SHOWERS.
- Most people in the developed world are taking one shower per day. But the statistics are quite varied by region and country. Here are some examples of showers per week:
- Australia, USA 80% -7 x 8 minute showers.
- France, Spain >70% – 7 x 9 min showers plus 2 baths per week.
- Average western world 50-60% -7 showers.
- Figures are sketchy but as an estimate, I guess no more than 2 billion people shower daily, which by default means 6 billion do not.
- People in the developing nations may not shower at all. They might hand wash from a small tub once a week or fortnight. Are those less clean? They may have some body odour, (we all do), but their health is not affected. During the World War II and for some years after I washed once a week from a tub.
- The habit of showering daily in western society is apparently created by vigorous soap marketing campaigns. Two billion of us have been brainwashed to shower with detergents daily. Plus we use way too much water. So do we need it, is it good for us? Harvard Health says NO.
- Please take particular note of the paragraph about the immune system trigger. I have an interesting personal addition to this:
- Tetanus is a bacterium that leaves spores everywhere around us. These spores are mostly in soil , faeces and rusty parts like, barbed wire. When the spores enter our body, (often via a cut or wound) we get the tetanus infection. It is not spread from human to human. I have my regular 10 year tetanus booster injection. And guess what happens? For two years following the booster, I do not get a cold, whereas I normally get one sometimes two per year. This is confirmation of the immune system readiness trigger principle.
- I am now in the habit to take a shower every second day, (meaning 7 per fortnight), unless I have done a very sweaty job during the day. I try and limit my shower time to 4 sometimes 5 minutes and I don’t have the tap full bore.
- I use only soap, this washes away quickly, and not detergents. I never ever use shampoo for my hair, just soap. I wet and rub my hair during every shower I take, but I only do it with soap once every 3 showers.
- Using shampoo is too harsh, it dissolves all the protective oils in the skin. (I used to work for Unilever for 5 years). Using too much shampoo dries the skin out and can create dandruff. The skin replaces the cells regularly and the dead skins are being shed. When you have a dry scalp this effect becomes more pronounced. So now we need a special anti-dandruff shampoo. And so it goes on.
6. WASHING CLOTHES.
Washing clothes. In the developed world we use a tumbling or agitating washing machine. The water contains a surfactant like soap or detergent.
In the olden days we rubbed the clothes, with dollop of green soap, over a ribbed metal washboard. The rubbing motion, as in the case of washing hands, makes the water-surfactant media move in-between the threads and loosen the dirt. The agitator in the washing machine does the same thing.
In the developing nations people often wash their clothes in the creek or river and smash or rub them over the rocks.
So, how can we in our developed world reduce our water and energy use for clothes washing?
- Firstly I only wash in cold water. In fact I do not even provide warm water to the laundry. The modern detergents handle cold water washing comfortably. If something needs a warm soak, I will put it in the tub and boil a jug to add to the soak.
- I accumulate clothing until I have a full load in the machine. I am selective what clothes I put into the washing basket.
- I wish I could reduce the amount of water for the rinsing cycle, because it won’t require a full load. The soap will come off when the clothes get splashed around.
I use 100 Ltr for 1 load of washing per fortnight. Mind you sometimes I have an additional separate wash for towels or cardigans. So, lets say 140 Ltr or 10 Ltr /day.
7. FLUSHING TOILETS.
Flushing the toilet is a necessarily evil, if you have a flushing – septic type of toilet. But there is the possibility to use a waterless toilet and I mention here the composting toilet (this toilet still involves digging and hence I don’t think it is suitable for the agricultural tenancy) and the incinerating toilet. I have, not long ago, dismantled my septic toilet system and the septic tanks and installed an incinerating toilet. It works like a dream and uses NO WATER. The purchase prices sounds expensive compared to a flushing toilet, but when you add the cost of a septic system your are thousand of dollars ahead.
When I was having a normal water flushing toilet I used about 65 Ltr/day for that, that water usage is all saved.
8. WHAT ABOUT THOSE OTHER WATER USES?
Those other uses, are really non essential tasks. When we had water shortages and Dam levels were low restrictions were introduced. We also developed water wise rules. I noticed there is no uniformity in those rules between states and even towns. The trigger point is usually related to lower water level in the Dams. Most towns have just 4 levels, but some have more. All this started in 2002 when the Dam levels were the lowest for 100 years. But we hade more restrictions in 2019 and they will happen again and again.
- At level 4 you cannot do any of those tasks.
- At level 3 you cannot use automatic garden watering systems. Also you can no longer top up your swimming pool. My last couple of years in Sydney I had a backyard pool, and it sure affected my water consumption. I think pools are a huge luxury, that may go out of vogue in future years.
- Even at level 2 there is no window cleaning, no washing hard surfaces and car washing can only be done in a commercial car wash, because the recycle their water. In fact that should be a permanent rule.
- At level 1 there are minor restrictions on all those tasks, like only use hand held hoses or use a bucket to wash cars and windows. Garden watering only before 9am and after 6pm.
9. WHAT IS MY WATER USAGE NOW?
By the way, Maxwell Smart was the main player of the spy comedy Get Smart, launched in 1965 and ran 138 episodes.
One water consumption we keep as is, which is the water that keeps us alive. The water we drink and use for cooking. So how much water do I use?
FRESH WATER drink & cook 4 L/day
hand wash 10 L/day
kitchen sink 6 L/day
total 20 to 23 L/day
This is the actual water I consume, which is only 12% of what a city dweller consumes.
GREY WATER NOW shower 4-5min at 8L/min = 40 L/shower.
however I take a shower every 2nd day = 20 L/day
washing machine 140 L/wash per fortnight
which includes a small wash for towels & jeans
result is say 140 L/14 days = 10 L/day
total 30 L/day
PRIOR with toilet flushing I used 65 L/ day
thus saved 35 L/day.
However the total consumption of 30L/day is recycled for use. I could easily shower daily, but I still believe that excessive cleaning and removing our natural protection is not good for us.
Leaving a true consumption of 20-23L/day.
Please note I have been showering and washing in recycled grey water for about 2 years now, and I am still running around, fit as a fiddle. And I have a laboratory, where I prepare bacteria cultures to check my process and check chemical criteria. I am still working on a simple control system that people without a laboratory can do. So, what I explained here is only the simple version. There is a lot more to it than that. We need to consider factors like water chemistry, accumulation, time, other losses, and monitoring. You cannot have everything, which means you cannot have 100% forever. Eventually you will have to dispose of some water in time and refresh it.
Research is still continuing.
What does an urban dweller consume in water?
Their average consumption is 200 L/day/person.
They can recycle their grey water, but only over the lawn.
So my setup and methods save 177 L/day or 64,600 L/year. My recycling part of that is theoretically 30L/day or 10,950L/year.
In theory I can live of that for 6 years.
Let us say my family is 2 people, then they will consume about 16800 L/year.
My current water storage ready for use is 20,000 L fresh + 15,000 L grey, plus some 12,000 Ltr in the collective grey processing tanks. Way more than I need.
But the government wants remote occupants to have water reserves for fire fighting. Two of my tanks have connections for fire hoses. (15,000 Ltr total) But if need be I can transfer water from any tank to any other tank.
10. HOW DO I DO MY RECYCLING?
- The first thing that is necessary, is to have two separate storage, piping, and filtration systems.
- When I discharge the water from the shower and the washing machine, which is 30 L/day, that goes into a collection tank.
- Into that tank I dose, intermittently, a small amount of chlorine, basically to control the smell. I also bubble air through that tank to break down the soaps and get rid of the froth and foam.
- When the tank is full, I transfer it to a second larger tank, where I, once more bubble, again intermittently, air through the tank. But I also bubble Ozone into the tank from an Ozone generator. Both of those will get rid of any left over soap, chlorine, and most importantly bacteria or algae.
- The residence time in this tank can be several weeks. When the water level in the hill top grey tank is low, I transfer water from the processing tank.
- I am using very little grey water these days, now that I got rid of the flushing toilet. I am actually storing too much water for my current usage.
Next I can explain the equipment that is required to run the water system.
