Everyone will know what I’m talking about when I say this in fact we are all guilty of it at some point in our lives with most of us being serial offenders. You make your way innocently over to the kitchen sink for a glass of nice cool, refreshing water but the stuff coming out of the tap isn’t quite up to your standards because it isn’t cold enough for your liking so what do you do?, you let it run on the highest setting possible, it gushes out of the tap like a fire hydrant and then you continue to wait, and then some. While you’re too busy waiting for your water to reach the optimum temperature to your satisfaction, you’re unaware that perfectly fine drinkable water is just emptying down the drain.
Did you know just by doing this can actually waste up to a gallon of perfectly drinkable water at the expense of getting just one glass of cool water the way you like it? The exact opposite applies when you wait for the opportune time to plug the sink when the hot water finally kicks in to fill up the sink for your dishes.
It’s not until you crunch the numbers and factor in the sheer number of people in your home that use this method of temperature selection and the amount of times each day this occurs when you realize that you’ve accumulated some pretty substantial water losses over the period of a year. Even the smallest amounts over time add up.
I don’t blame you, it’s an easy thing to do when you aren’t aware. You don’t notice the volume lost because it disappears down the sink. It would be a different scenario however if you were to plug that sink to get a sense for the sheer amount you were losing down the drain.
So what’s the best solution to the problem? One simple way is the addition of a small sink for capturing excess water while you wait for your water to reach the right temperature to your liking.
The small sink you install leads to a containment situated underneath your kitchen sink rather than to be diverted directly to the sewer system. The water collected in the containment becomes what is known as “gray water”. This is water that is relatively clean and contains little soapy residue, household cleaning agents and organic matter, this is due to the fact that it goes to a separate receptacle from the pipe that leads to the sewer . It’s this water that can be recycled and used to water a thirsty lawn or house plants in need of a good drink.
The benefit of having an additional, small sink is that you then have a system in place that collects this clean water which is immediately ready for use.
On the other hand, gray water that is captured from sources such as the bath or the washing machine must be treated before re-using seeing as it full of detergents and chemicals. You can still recycle this type of water but it’s just a little more labor intensive to do so and to get the most use out of.
Remember the entire planet is covered in water but less than 1% of the earth’s entire water supply is drinkable so the next time you find yourself at the kitchen sink, ple
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