Home Water & sewerage

Printer friendly version

Grey Waste Water

Greywater is waste water from washing machines, laundry tubs, showers, hand basins and baths.  It does not include waste water from toilets, urinals, bidets, or kitchens. 

Greywater from residential premises (single households) is a resource and can be reused on-site for garden and lawn irrigation or, if treated appropriately, for toilet flushing and laundry use (washing machine only). Substituting greywater for drinking water for these end uses will not only reduce the demand on drinking water supplies, but will also reduce the amount of sewage wastewater discharged to the environment. 

There are three ways of reusing greywater that can be implemented for sewered residential premises in NSW:

• greywater diversion, which diverts greywater generated by a premises to the garden or lawn for use in sub-surface irrigation;
• greywater treatment, which treats greywater for other reuse, such as toilet flushing, washing machine and surface irrigation (installation will require a Land Use Application – s68 Approval from Council); and
• manual bucketing, which involves the reuse of relatively small quantities of greywater for irrigation.

Guidelines for the installation and usage of greywater systems from single residences have been developed. Refer to the NSW Greywater Usage Guidelines below. Providing the guidelines are followed Council approval is not required.

Contact details
Wingecarribee Shire Council
02 48 680 888 (ph)
wscmail@wsc.nsw.gov.au

© 2008 Wingecarribee Shire Council
This page: http://wingecarribee.local-e.nsw.gov.au/sewerage/4974.html