Engaging the plug in the tub to retain the water from a shower does two useful things:
- Encourage me not to take long showers, as suggested by my blogPal Reduce Footprints
- Provide greywater for my container garden.
Greywater is water that has been used, as in a shower or in washing dishes, so that it is no longer drinkable, but is not icky so it can be used in gardening. The little bit of soap and exfoliated skin flakes in the water doesn't really bother the plants; scooping the greywater out of the tub to pour on thirsty tomatoes, sunflowers, herbs and so on keeps them healthy and growing just as well as water from the tap or the hose would.
In an ideal system, our entire building's greywater from all its apartments would be collected and reused systematically. Someday, all new buildings will have this feature but for now, showering with my garden is a practical first step.
P.S. it very slightly reduces my water bills. Going green can mean saving green as well!
2 comments:
Excellent ... and thank you so much for participating in "Change The World Wednesdays"! I love the idea of leaving the plug in ... it really makes one aware of how much water they are using ... and awareness is an important step in making changes.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if all new construction included rain barrels. I keep asking our building managers to set one up but ... so far ... no dice! So ... as you suggested ... I'm a water scooper. :)
Take Care!
Small Footprints
http://reducefootprints.blogspot.com
that's an excellent idea! we take pretty short showers in our house and have rain barrels that almost never go dry, but if we have a drought I will definitely collect shower water.
My husband recently told me though that grey water and rain barrels are illegal in some areas. I'm looking into that and will do a blog post when I find out. -kate
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