In 2018, through some research online, I had a very simple DIY greywater treatment put together on two sections of the garden. One for kitchen greywater and the other for bathroom (sink and shower) greywater. Today, I took some videos and photos to show how it’s all working after 6 years.
Please refer to the post about what this simple DIY greywater treatment is all about. There I’ve put photos, explanations and links to the references I used to design and build the system.
KITCHEN GREYWATER TREATMENT
These are important things I can report:
The grease trap is still in good working condition. I only had to replace the plastic sieve on top twice because they got brittle and broken from exposure to sun and the stress of cleaning them.
Most of the plants I planted in the infiltration planter died. They weren’t suitable for greywater. The best plants for this type of water are these that can be seen in the video, most notably: Brazilian Red Cloak (Megaskepasma erythrochlamys), Costus Igneus (Insulin Plant, Chamaecostus cuspidatus, common name fiery costus or spiral flag), and Sunset Bells (Chrysothemis pulchella).
The water that flows out of the infiltration planter goes into a ground level planter and the video also shows a greater variety of plants that thrived really well. It took some patience trying out all sorts of plants in these locations to see which ones loved growing in greywater. It was worth the patience.
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BATHROOM GREYWATER TREATMENT
I had some soil dumped on the cemented gravel path where the bathroom water goes into. These plants grew remarkably well. I have not replaced the gravel or cleaned anything up.
The household is composed of only two persons, so our wastewater volume is not very large.
