from shower to flower

Earth Day is com­ing up on Wednes­day. What environment-friendly changes will you be try­ing to make?

Last year we installed a tan­k­less water heater, a move that has saved us at least 30% on our gas bill. But it still takes a while for the heated water to make it to the bath­room. In the past, we let the cold water in the pipes go down the drain until the water got to a proper shower tem­per­a­ture. recovered-water-bucketBut now the water is going into a bucket that we’ll use to water the gar­den. (A prettier–or at least cleaner–bucket not for­merly used for pulling weeds and mix­ing pot­ting soil is next on the agenda…)

The next log­i­cal step for water con­ser­va­tion would be to install a gray water sys­tem to reuse wash­wa­ter. Reg­u­la­tions in Cal­i­for­nia have been com­plex enough so that only 41 house­holds have done it legally in San Diego County, and only 200 state-wide. State sen­a­tor Alan Lowen­thal from Long Beach has intro­duced a new bill, SB 1258, that would man­date a review of exist­ing codes to make it eas­ier to design and install legal gray water sys­tems, a piece of leg­is­la­tion that is being called the “shower to flower” bill.

It’s a good start, and one worth supporting.

Related read­ing:
San Diego Union Tribue: New water­ing source is sur­fac­ing (March 23, 2009 arti­cle)
Los Ange­les Times: A solu­tion to California’s water short­age goes down the drain (April 19, 2009 opin­ion piece)
The text of SB 1258, marked up with com­ments and sug­ges­tions for fur­ther improve­ments by Oasis Design.

April 19 2009 | Categories: gardening • my garden | Tags: • • • | 7 Comments »