What is Greywater?
Any water that is used at home is labeled as greywater. Greywater is recycled water which comes from places like laundry, kitchen, bathroom faucets, baths, and showers. Greywater containing food residue or high amounts of toxic concentration is labelled as black water. Greywater should not be confused with black water, which is the recycled water from the toilets. Black water should not be recycled due to its high level of bacteria. Black water consists of urine and feces. Greywater is neither fresh nor heavily contaminated.
Did You Know?
- About 65% of indoor home water use occurs in our bathrooms. Toilets are the single greatest water user.
- Did you know that in Canada in 2001, the average personuses more than 335 litres of fresh water a day?
- As a community grows, the use of water grows even quicker because the range of water used, increases with size.
Fresh Water Shortages
On Earth, 75% of Earth's total land mass is water. 97.5% of that is salt water, and 2.5% of the remaining water on Earth is fresh water. Less than 1% is fresh water which is accessible to humankind. Torontonians use about 250 litres of water a day, which is a lot of water (that's about 620 million litres drank by the population of Toronto only). Water shortages are becoming more serious, look the below picture, the Aral Sea in Asia has been losing a great deal of fresh water in 44 years.
What can be done to prevent water shortages?
There are many methods of preventing fresh water shortages. Watering your plants with greywater is a great way to start. You could wash your car on the grass, doing this can keep you car clean and water your lawn at the same time. Use cold water in the washer instead of warm or hot water because using cold water saves plenty of water. Installing water-efficient shower heads to save water. Take 5 minute showers instead of baths. Water conservation starts with us!
Why you should act now?
UNESCO has predicted that by the year 2020, water shortage will be an extremely severe global crisis. It has been said that freshwater is called, “oil of the 21st century”. Fresh water is running out, and nations will soon war for fresh water.
