Suitable for Laundry to Landscape System?

[JGreen]

We live in a terrace house (approximately 800 sq ft over two floors) with a garden (yard) of about 300 sq ft arranged with raised beds totalling just over 100 sq ft. Family of four, with a minimum of five laundry loads a week - sometimes more.

We live in an area built on clay marl (though the raised beds are more porous) and average annual rainfall of 63 cms (25 inches). The maximum I would want to give over to trees/plants suitable for grey water is two beds of 32 sq ft each. I can't really increase the raised beds, as we need the space for storage of bicycles/recycling bins/area for eating outside etc... The beds I could use for small trees are on each side of the yard - one starts almost directly the other side of the wall from my washing machine. I'm wondering whether these two beds are a big and porous enough area to handle the quantity of greywater from my laundry. Or would be better off putting the effort into more systematic rainwater harvesting + soakaway system (currently the majority of surface water from the roof goes down the drain into the public sewer) and then use rainwater for toilet flushing/laundry in addition to garden (as I currently do) or retrofitting a micro greywater reuse system such as an ecoplay toilet. I'm not keen on pumping rainwater upstairs to flush the toilet or treating rainwater, but ecoplay seems a possible compromise.

[hstueckler]

This is how I would approach the issue:

Assuming that your rainwater flows into a stormdrain and not a sanitary sewer (for blackwater), it will most likely drain to a creek or river that could use the clean water. That would put rainwater reuse further down the list than greywater reuse. That being said, there are applications that rainwater "fits" better than greywater, such as toilet flushing (rainwater won't go septic and stink if it is in your flush tank for the weekend while you are away.)

Using as much of your greywater as possible has several benefits, including longer septic system life (if you have a septic tank), or less community cost to operate a sewage treatment system. Additionally, if you can "harvest" the nutrients in the greywater for your plants, you can compound the benefit to yourself and community.

It would make sense to maximize your greywater use, even if you can only use some of it. You might use as much as you can on your landscape, and divert the surplus to the sewer system.

If you are able to harvest rainwater, use it for applications where clean water will provide the most benefit. (This can include flushing salts from your garden with periodic watering)

I am not an expert on the subject by far, so be sure to do as much research as you can...

[JGreen]

Assuming that your rainwater flows into a stormdrain and not a sanitary sewer (for blackwater),

I'm afraid not. Like much of the UK, my guttering discharges into the public sewer. Thus the treatment plant deals with my blackwater, greywater and whatever surface water I don't collect (at present 1 x water butt with 120 litre capacity - for the run off from my use I calculated I would need more than 1000 litre capacity). Though the building standard for new builds requires that surface drainage doesn't discharge into the public sewer (e.g. by using soakaways instead), that isn't very often retrofitted to victorian terrace properties.