Waste Water Treatment
Treat and clean greywater.
Flush toilets with treated greywater, clean and clear.
Improves and adds to conventional systems without replacing.
Liquid Waste Water Planters provide for prolific Food Production.
The design and layout of the plumbing system are completely normal and conventional. The system outlined meets all International Building Codes. The system is set up (via valving) creating loops. These loops have the botanical treatment cells within them. These loops can be completely bypassed via valving. This does not replace conventional plumbing; the system outlined is in addition to conventional plumbing.
Greywater is regulated by state and local governments, and each of these entities have their own, more specific definition. For example, the state of California, in the Uniform Plumbing code defines gray water as: Greywater is untreated waste water which has not come into contact with toilet waste. Greywater includes waste water from bathtubs, showers, bathroom wash basins, clothes washing machines, and laundry tubs, or an equivalent discharge as approved by the Administrative Authority. It does not include waste water from kitchen sinks, photo lab sinks, dishwashers, or laundry water from soiled diapers.
The use of greywater results in lower fresh water use, less strain on failing septic tanks or treatment plants, less energy and chemical use, and reclamation of otherwise wasted nutrients. All of these benefits equal a savings in energy and the natural resource that is water.
Black Water
The used gray water flows to interior botanical cells, where plants use up and treat the water until it’s clean enough to be collected in a well at the end of the planter and pumped, on demand, to the toilet tank for flushing. (Forty percent of water used in a conventional home is for toilet flushing.)
The toilet water then goes to a conventional septic tank, which overflows into an exterior rubber-lined botanical cell filled with exterior landscaping plants.
We have tested our plants growing from Black Water botanical Cells and they do not have any harmful bacterias. Of course, we do not advise planting any root vegetables or any direct food production, but the trees are thriving in Black Water, and we have tried with apricots, cherries, and all sorts of berries.
The picture here shows the Black Water Tree from the Phoenix Earthship.
Every drop of water that lands on an Earthship roof is used four times, so homes can subsist and even thrive without taking water from the ground or municipal sources.
