Kytyngurl2 t1_iudoog4 wrote
Reply to comment by 8to24 in U.S. Streams Are Drying Up. Data showed that in the South and West, streamflow droughts got longer between 1951 and 2020, regardless of threshold. Worse yet, droughts in these regions are becoming more intense by Wagamaga
Toilets ought to be grey water only. Using old shower, laundry, and rain water. We throw away water that’s still usable for something.
thintoast t1_iudpjub wrote
I’m not sure how common it is, but when I visited Ireland a few years back, a place we stayed at had a rainwater collection tank that held partially treated water for toilet flushing and bathroom hand washing. A super simple concept and extremely resourceful.
H3rbert_K0rnfeld t1_iudxr5k wrote
You don't want to get caught with a rain barrel in Utah or Cali
Celesticle t1_iudy63x wrote
Rain barrels are legal in Utah now have been for a few years.
H3rbert_K0rnfeld t1_iue07av wrote
Ah! TIL! Now ya'll just need rain to fill them ;-)
Celesticle t1_iue1hwx wrote
Yeah that would be lovely. Consistent rain anyway. We got sporadic heavy rain over the summer. Plenty of floods in Southern Utah, Moab hit hard a few times, but Great Salt Lake is dangerously low and our legislature is incompetent and greedy so I have little faith they'll fix anything before it's too late.
SNRatio t1_iue6og6 wrote
They're fine in California, at least where I live. I have three near my front door.
[deleted] t1_iudzrl5 wrote
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[deleted] t1_iudtci2 wrote
Population of Ireland 4.6 million
Population of the United States 326 million
Population of China 1.39 Billion
You see how rain barrels aren't going to scale?
strausbreezy28 t1_iudvzhp wrote
This is a silly comment. You would need to do an analysis that involves population, population density, rainfall, rainfall density and frequency, etc. in order to say whether or not that kind of system would scale. Not just looking at population.
MyNameis_Not_Sure t1_iudxf24 wrote
And determine where unlimited rain water harvesting is still legal… Colorado has already regulated this and I’m sure they aren’t alone
[deleted] t1_iudxtg3 wrote
Colorado legalized collecting years ago...right after the longest hardest rains came to a sudden and permenant end. I collected ridiculous amounts of water, then found out I wasn't allowed to, dumped it and then they changed the damn law.
MyNameis_Not_Sure t1_iudyi3m wrote
They codified a limited amount of rainwater collection. Colorado did nothing to legalize it, it’s been legal since the dawn of time
[deleted] t1_iudyy0f wrote
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[deleted] t1_iudxvvl wrote
How many rain barrels you need to wash 100,000 people's hands?
10,000 people?
1000 people?
100 people?
1.28 gallons per toilet that's 69.5 Billion gallons required to flush Chinese toilets if they only flush once day. 50 gallons per barrel, you need 1.39 Billion barrels filled every single day.
8to24 t1_iudytxk wrote
This pedantic argument totally misses the point. It isn't that rain water is the answer for the whole world. It is that treated potable water shouldn't be used for toilets. In some places rain water may work. In other places lightly filtered gray water (sink & laundry) might do the trick.
cammoblammo t1_iuffyqi wrote
Why would you only have a fifty gallon barrel?
Here in Australia a small water tank is about 250 gallons. It’s not uncommon to find tanks twenty or even fifty times that size.
I know plenty of people who run their entire house with rainwater.
[deleted] t1_iufouut wrote
The law says 110 gallons max. There's a deal to get water from the Colorado River signed by five states, taking water on residential properties prevents water from running off into the river.
Something like 70% of Australia is uninhabitable.
cammoblammo t1_iugvsmf wrote
A large area of Australia is uninhabitable, which is why we use big-arse tanks to catch the rain.
In most new dwellings in some states (even—especially—in cities) it’s mandatory to have rainwater tanks installed.
Rednys t1_iug487w wrote
You flushing your toilet is not simply throwing it away. And adding more plumbing and tanks to hold and distribute your grey water adds complexity and cost to housing and more maintenance. All this for an extremely small amount of water "saved".
Additionally if your waste water isn't being diluted by some "clean" water it's much more toxic and much more solid which could also lead to problems.
xeneks t1_iugs9lb wrote
The waste being diluted enough so it’s able to be treated and doesn’t solidify or clog in pipes is something that I am sure is an actual issue. I wonder if they have to add water sometimes to offset the water saving of residents who achieve amazing low water consumption patterns? Also, if they have to add water to be able to actually process the wastewater as it’s received? This is why I think a way to create little bags of faeces like in the martian movie and book, makes sense. The faeces is a high cost, high value component. Simply bagging it means suddenly pipes have less physical material to address, and also, the faeces isn’t contaminated with other chemicals such as detergents or hair or clothes or or teeth or hand washing compounds.
Kytyngurl2 t1_iugr7zw wrote
Thank you for the additional information!
draeath t1_iudy2d3 wrote
In most (non-septic) US households at least, the drains and toilets all go to the same place. I don't think you want to recirculate that for flushing, the result won't be much better than letting it sit.
AaronJeep t1_iuffgvo wrote
Most of the smaller 1.5" pipe drains (sinks, tubs, washers) make their way under the house via PVC networks until they connect with larger 3" and 4" drains used by toilets. You could reroute just the shower drain on millions of homes to a tank and a small put could feed it back to toilets. It would never mix with raw sewage. It wouldn't be reasonable with homes built on a slab, you could still do it pretty easy on millions and millions of homes, apartments and such. That would save millions and million of gallons of water.
[deleted] t1_iudp7h4 wrote
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