How exciting!  The Texas city of  San Marcos, located near Austin has approved a greywater (graywater) ordinance that will allow greywater for toilet flushing. The city council, following in the footsteps of Austin, TX, will allow shower water, washing machine water and sink water for uses such as irrigation and TOILET FLUSHING.

Water Legacy is very pleased at the comments made by the council members, that is that their constituents have expressed a need for this.  The people do matter!!  Our conservation and efficiency demands on our government will create the grass roots efforts for continued saving of fresh water!

According to the Austin Statesman - the local newspaper - the council has added some considerations to the ordinance, but all in all it is a very good message for the water conservationists.

“In addition, the proposed ordinance stipulates that gray water must be applied in a way that prevents pooling and runoff onto other properties. Clack said the ordinance primarily targets new home construction.

“We’re encouraging builders to install new gray water plumbing,” Clack said. But there are no incentives currently planned for builders or residents, he said.

For commercial and industrial applications, gray water can only be used for landscape maintenance, dust control and toilet flushing.

Council member John Thomaides said that the ordinance is one that residents have pushed for in the past.

“Citizens have communicated to me through the years that they want to capture laundry water, mostly for gardening,” Thomaides said. “If homeowners want to use it to save aquifer water, it’s a good thing. (The ordinance) gives us the ability to tell people how to use it.”

To read the whole article, click on this link: 

http://www.statesman.com/news/local/san-marcos-to-consider-gray-water-ordinance-811895.html?cxtype=rss_local

Green Collar Research boasts the largest B2B Green Directory on the web and we are a part of the directory!

Added to the site last week, Water Legacy is the only greywater re-use system on this site. 

Follow this link to visit the site:  

http://www.greencollareconomy.com/Green_Directory/environment/water-efficiency-%26-technology/greywater-management/water-legacy/details/

Laer Pearce, one of my connections on LinkedIn, posted an article on the Water Conservation Professionals group that has definitive information that relates to Water Legacy and our mission to reduce water consumption through re-use of greywater by toilet flushing.  Over 1,100 counties in the US will face shortages of water by 2050.  After reading this article, we realize our mission may be in its infancy, because we american’s have a tendancy not to think beyond a couple of years.  So what can we do???

Greywater recycling, conservation through re-use in irrigation, eco-faucets and high efficiency plumbing are the starting blocks. However; serious efforts need to be made in municipal use, power plant cooling and industrial applications. Total water consumption is projected to increase, not decrease by 2050 by 12% for municipal use and electric cooling.  Agriculture, livestock, irrigation and mining is expected to remain relatively the same.  We can have an effect on our municipal use through greywater recycling by using our shower and washing machine water to flush our toilets. We can impact usage individually. Domestic greywater recycling has reduced our family’s overall use by at least 40%, but not everyone is married to the designer of the WL55.   

To read more about this topic visit this website: http://www.nrdc.org/globalWarming/watersustainability/files/WaterRisk.pdf