Somewhere in the grey area

When you google gray water you’ll not only learn the preferred spelling is g-r-e-y, and that it’s any “used” water that doesn’t have fecal matter in it, you’ll also get a mountain of articles about repurposing it. Watering gardens, flushing toilets, doing laundry, and so on. With enough filtering and treating, you could even drink it and cook with it.

Many van dwellers have grey water tanks of some sort. Not because they’re ever going to garden or flush toilets or cook their pasta in grey water, but because RVs have grey water tanks and they view their self-built van homes as small RVs. And/or because they think it’s wrong to just toss grey water on the ground. Well, let’s talk about the latter. (There won’t be any actual talking. I’ll write and you can read. Or not.)

What’s in your grey water? Food particles? Skin cells? Hair? Body oils? Sweat? Dirt? Soap? All but the last one are natural and biodegradable and do no harm when poured back onto Mother Earth, who gave them to us in the first place.

So soap is the problem. Unless you use biodegradable ones. Or none. (Google can also provide a mountain of articles about washing without soaps or detergents.)

If you’re happy dealing with your grey water tank then continue on. But if you’re tired of monitoring grey water level and then finding a “proper” place to dispose of it (where it will get mixed with sewage and sent through a treatment plant, or into a septic system where it gets mixed with sewage and slowly dribbles into the ground anyway, or gets pumped out and hauled to a treatment plant) consider switching to biodegradable soap and adopting the toss-as-you-go method. It eliminates the middlemen. Just look before you fling. You don’t want to be splashing anyone. Well, except maybe your enemies.