From Greywater to Green Landscapes: Reducing Residential Summer Water Consumption While Growing Green Landscapes

Greywater – gently-used water from sinks, showers, and washing machines – can be simply and safely reused for outdoor irrigation. Greywater use has many benefits including saving water, reducing energy consumption, encouraging healthier product choices, connecting people to their water supply, and reducing strain on wastewater and septic systems.As droughts become more frequent and prolonged in the Northwest, we must explore and develop additional avenues for water conservation and re-use, such as greywater re-purposed for outdoor irrigation. Oregon legalized greywater in 2012 but relatively few have permitted new systems over the past 5-6 years. More work is needed to educate people about how to reuse this resource. In the talk, we will describe potential water and financial savings, and give a brief introduction to greywater system types, and provide a link to the Oregon greywater partnership website where folks can learn more In summers 2016 and 2017 Greywater Action, Depave, Recode, and Oregon Tradeswomen with financial support from East and West Multnomah SWCDs implemented a greywater educational workshop series. We completed ten workshops, built the first eight legally permitted systems in Portland, and reached over 150 people. We also trained a cadre of landscape professionals who can install these systems, and developed a standardized greywater permit plan to assist early adoptees. We estimate that collectively the eight demonstration greywater systems save over 15,000 gallons of water/year