Alliance Laundry Systems

Transcription

>> WARREN: Hi, I'm Charles Warren. I'm a User Experience Designer on mobile and welcome. Thanks for coming. I want to introduce Laura Allen, who for many years has been a champion of Greywater out of Oakland. She was the founder of Greywater Guerillas. You may be aware that it used to not be strictly legal to use Greywater for irrigations, so she led a lot of the work to cut those policy changes and things done. We're very happy to have her. And Greg Bullock is a contractor and installer who build these systems. He's going to talk about some of the ways you can go about and thinking through whether a Greywater system makes sense for you. And I think they've got us--they're going to lay down the gauntlet for us Googlers. So, without further ado, take it away Laura and Greg and thank you so much for being here. >> BULLOCK: Thank you. >> ALLEN: Thanks for having me. I'm Laura. I'm a co-founder of Greywater Guerilla's, now known as Greywater Action. Before we start talking about Greywater, I want to think about--first thing, think about water for a sec. So I have a couple of cups of water over here and I want you to--so the first one represents a country. It's totally full; it's got 156 gallons of water in it. Anyone want to guess what country what might use this amount per day, as per capita use? >> The U.S.? >> ALLEN: Yeah, the United States. This other cup, this represents a continent now and this is representing about 88 gallons per person per day. So it's just residential use: cooking, drinking, watering their landscape, not agriculture, not industry. Anyone want to guess what continent might use this much? >> Europe. >> ALLEN: Yep. Europe. Europe on average uses about half as much as Americans use and England is a really low water user. They use about 40 gallons per person per day. So, now this cup, this is another continent. It's representing 22 gallons per person per day. Any guesses? >> Asia. >> ALLEN: Yeah. Asia. Yup. Now, we have another continent. This is 12 gallons per person per day. Any guesses? It's Africa. And the last one, this is one of the lowest water-using countries in the entire world. It's representing 1.3 gallons of water per person per day. Any guesses? >> A country? >> ALLEN: It's a country. Yeah. >> Rome. >> ALLEN: You're close. Yes. It's Gambia. So it's one of the lowest water users in the world. So, we just wanted to start with, you know, how much water we do use. In the United States, we have a lot--we have a lot of water and we use a lot and so we're excited to talk about some better ways to use that water. >> BULLOCK: Thanks, Laura. OK. So just picking-up off that theme, a few more questions for you. Anybody want to have a guess at what the recommended amount of water per person is recommended for basic sanitation and health needs, per person? Charles, you should know this one. >> WARREN: Yeah. >> BULLOCK: 13 gallons. How many people worldwide have no access to any water within a 15 minute radius of their homes? One billion people. And how many gallons of raw or partially treated sewage flows into U.S. waterways per year? Oh, exactly. Okay. And final quiz and then we'll get on to some more content. >> [INDISTINCT] >> That's everything, yeah. That's the whole management system across the country, yeah. Final quiz. Who said, "Whisky is for drinking and water is for fighting over, fighting for? Any guesses? Mark Twain said that. Okay. Back to you Laura. >> ALLEN: So to start talking about Greywater, there was a really excellent report that came out last year looking at the--can Greywater can really meet our needs and it's a non-potable source of water. So if we look at how it can meet our irrigations needs, we can find that it actually matches up really well. So there's two charts. If you just look at shower and laundry water, these are--have average per capita use in California. And then you look at the outdoor use for landscaping, there's a really good match. So we can just take all that water instead off sending it to the sewer plant which often, you know, doesn't treat it properly, often it does, but not always. We can use that to irrigate outside, things that don't need potable water. And another thing to of note is, you know, how much water is this? Like, you know, each household Greywater system like does it really--will it really impact California water? And if we look at--this is millions of gallons per day of savings. If people take that water and irrigate outside, you can look at just from washing machines, how many millions of gallons you'd save, showers and washers and then all Greywater. And I wanted to point you to one number that 10% column. If just 10% of people--and this is just Southern California--re-use their Greywater to irrigate plants outside, that would off-set the need for a medium sized desalinization plant. So, instead of, you know, looking for new sources of water, we can look for this source we already have. So getting into Greywater, one of the first questions is, is this legal? Like can I do this legally? And the regulations around Greywater have been changing over the last couple of decades. Greywater used to be viewed as sewage. It was part of just the whole water stream going down out of the house, considered sewage, dangerous, you can't reuse it. And certainly over time it's been shifted to be seen as a resource to be able to be used for non-potable sources. So in California, we were the first State to have a code. It was written in 1992. And it was a code, it's a plumbing code designed to allow people to reuse Greywater. But the way it was written, it really was more of a disposable code and so people weren't able to do that--to use --actually reuse it. They were kind of asked to dispose of it deep under the ground. And so, between 1992 and 2009, pretty much all Greywater Systems were done without a permit, which were--they were technically illegal because the code really wasn't in line with why people want to use it, how it was practical to use. And so, there's millions of un-permitted systems. And last year, a bit--a lot of--there was drought, there was a lot pressure of reducing water. And so, there was a big push to rewrite the code and make it actually fit with Greywater being a resource. And so, the Department of Housing and Community Development wrote a new code. And a lot of people were involved in that to really make it so we could use Greywater as a resource. And so, from last year and onward to the future, Greywater is seen as a resource. And we're going to show you some simple and legal ways that you can reuse it. >> Better safe than sorry. >> ALLEN: Yeah. >> What's the legal way [INDISTINCT] >> ALLEN: We'll get to that in one second. Yeah. Good. It's actually right here. So, Greywater--who has heard of Greywater? All of you. So, anyone have a Greywater System? >> Not yet. >> ALLEN: Not yet? Anyone interested? Couple of you? Yeah. So, Greywater, it's from sinks, showers and washing machines. So its water that's a little bit dirty but it's not too dirty to other plants. It's never from toilets and it's not from washing diapers, so it doesn't have thicker matter in it. It's not like the toilets, which would be not safe to reuse. Kitchen sinks, it depends on what state you live in if it's considered Greywater or not. In California, kitchen sinks are not allowed to be--we're not allowed to reuse that water legally. So I want to break Greywater into three ways. The first one is for outdoor use. This is just taking the Greywater, sending it outside. You're taking a shower, it's going out just directly and irrigating your plants. So that's the simplest way to use it. It's low tech. We try not to have pumps or filters or things that require maintenance and mechanical devices. The second way is also for outdoor use, but this is a little different. It's taking Greywater and sending it through a drip irrigation system, which is a lot more complicated because Greywater has hair in it, has lint, it has little, you know, chunks of things. It's a little gunky. And so, if you want to send that to drip irrigation, you're going have to really filter it and get all the particles out. And so, then you just have a much more complex system. So it's a really different way to use the water. And then the third way is indoor use. And so that's for non-potable uses, such as toilet flushing, and possibly laundry washing. And it's also a lot more complicated to get greywater back inside because it has to be filtered and disinfected and it's pumped and it's connected to the domestic water supply. And it's really just a whole other level of system. It's also not really allowed under the new code in any practical way and so it's definitely a good resource for bigger scale projects like commercial buildings. For residential, it's usually not very appropriate. And so, when you're thinking about any type of Greywater System, the soaps and the products you use really matter because now that water is going to your plants. So there's a couple of things you want to avoid. You want to avoid any salt compound. Salts, you know, sodium, all of that will damage the soil and damage your plants. You want to avoid boron or borate, that's also going to damage your plants. And chlorine bleaches obviously, you know, kills things; you don't want to send it outside. The next thing to kind of just get a little more informed is there's a lot of chemicals in our personal care products that are really just not good for us. And it's not really a plant issue or a Greywater issue, but it's often a good time when people are going to reuse their water, they want to think about well, what's in this stuff I'm using? And so, if you're interested in doing a little more researches to database, it's called cosmeticdatabase.org. And you can enter any product and they'll tell you what's in it. You know things are, oftentimes, it's kind of shocking to do this. Any of you guys tried this? Not yet? >> No. >> ALLEN: I think it's frightening, so be ready if you want to go down that route. But it's definitely informative. You can find out all sorts of things about the products. And then the other thing is there's products that are recommended. So if you don't want to do lots of research, you know, we can tell you what products that we've researched and found to have no salt, no boron and not a lot of other carcinogenic things that are in a lot of products. So here are just a few examples like Oasis, Biopac, Ecos, Aubrey Organics, there's more too. So, I'm going to talk about kind of some basic things with Greywater and this is just for the first way that outdoor simple systems. And a lot of times, it's really--Greywater is this unique source of irrigation. So that's kind of common sense knowledge with other types of irrigation don't really fit with Greywater. So it's important to kind of understand it and see the different kind of do's and don'ts of Greywater irrigation. So the do's, the things you want to do is mulch. It's a really important component of a system. You guys know what mulch is? Yeah, it's just like woodchips, you know, things covering up your landscapes so it's covering the soil. Mulch is really important for Greywater. You also-–you always want to have a way to go back to the sewer. It's called a three-way valve, and Greg's going to show you one example in a sec. You want to use plant-friendly products because it's going outside. And then you want to use–-I put a proven designing clothes because there's, you know, so many different ways you could get your water outside. And there's lots of ways people can tinker and, you know, get it to go out there. But if you use a design that other people have tried and you can just get some recommendations, it tends to work better and have less problems. So now, we have the don'ts. The first don't is, they're very common error, don't store Greywater. If you store it, it has nutrients in it, it has, you know, little pieces of gunk and stuff, it will start to break down and it'll basically start to smell very bad. So you don't ever want to have it in a container and store it for later. You also use--make Greywater everyday, so there's no reason, practical reason to store it. You don't want to have a filter that you have to actually manually clean because that's just a point of failure, people forget to clean things if you need to have regular maintenance, so that's a not a good idea. You don't want to use it if you're near a creek or a river. It has nutrients in it and those nutrients can actually pollute. It's like a fertilizer. So if that gets into the water, it will cause algae to grow and rob the creek or river of oxygen. So some sites are just not appropriate for Greywater. And you also don't want to use it if you don't have very good drainage on your site because you never want to have pooling of Greywater or running off. You need to make sure it can soak properly into the ground to irrigate plants. And so the next thing: mulch basin. Who's heard of a mulch basin? Got one person? Yeah, this is kind of a common-ish landscaping technique to be water-conserving. It's making, putting mulch around trees. It lets-–so what you do with the mulch basin is you go to the drip line of the tree and you remove some soil kind of like a doughnut ring of soil removed and you fill it up with woodchips instead. And this allows-–with Greywater when you are going to irrigate with Greywater, it goes into that mulch basin. It can spread out through all those woodchips. It gets actually kind of filtered in the woodchips naturally and it soaks down into the ground and you never see it into some pool or run off. It's just going underground and irrigating. So it's probably the most important piece of a Greywater System. And it's not often spoken of because it's, you know, out in the landscape. It's not a pipe; it's not a plumbing part; it's something you do to your landscape. But it's really important to have a well-functioning Greywater System. And so, as that Greywater goes into the landscape, the other really critical thing is something that you don't really see. It's the billions of microscopic soil bacteria that are in the soil. They're consuming nutrients; they're taking any kind of gunky, dirty whatever is in your Greywater and turning it into plant nutrients. So they're really critical for a Greywater System. And you don't actually have to do anything; you just need to have healthy soil. And I just want to show you my favorite one. This is, you know, sort of not an exactly realistic picture. So microscopic organism; this one is called the Tardigrade. Any of you heard of the Tardigrade? Now, this little bitty microscopic organism went into space and it survived space and it formed, turns itself into a cyst and can survive pretty much anything. It came back to earth and reproduced. So these things are--you know, in the soil, there's really strong organisms that can do just about anything like survive space. So we don't--if we get our Greywater going into healthy soil, we don't have to worry so much about the nutrients in it and the gunky stuff. >> BULLOCK: Thanks. So, the Tardigrades are going to save us. Okay, we're going to take a little bit of a deeper dive now and focus on one particular system, the laundry to landscape system. And I think the value of taking a focus on this one is this is considered like the low-hanging fruit of Greywater Systems. It's a great place to start. And I'll just run you through at a very high level here how it's done. Firstly, obviously, as Laura had mentioned, we have to be careful about what detergents or soaps we use in the first place. We have to use non-toxic ingredients. And then we can re-use that water that's coming out of the washing machine, divert it--and I'll show you some parts here in a minute--out to the landscape and grow food with it or shelter or a beautiful backyard oasis. Really, whatever we desire in terms of our backyard spaces or front yard landscapes, for that matter. Here's a little deeper dive; oops, excuse me. This is a schematic of a laundry to landscape system. It shows you how the plan would work in effect. Obviously, it's showing the collection plumbing here that distributes out to the landscape–-thank you--out to the landscape and actually, emits the water directly into the soil. And that connects with the mulch basins that we just heard Laura talk to. So, the beauty of this system is that, well, for one, it has a built-in pump. It uses the pump of the washing machine. So if there are any distributions challenges, maybe you have a slight incline. There are some ways to overcome those challenges because you have this built-in pump. Apart from that, no additional gadgetry is required. No filters to break down, which is wonderful. So, if this is a design--well-designed system upfront, this system will never fail over time. A very low tech, but high effective solution. So rough estimate, this is a doable system for a somewhat handy home owner. It's not for everybody, but it can be done. Material cost would run between $100 to $200 if you were willing to do these yourselves. If you wanted a professional install, a good rule of thumb would be about $700 up to about $2,000 depending on the size, complexity of the job. One thing quickly to know, Greywater Systems are very site specific. It's very situational. So it's important to kind of, you know, do those assessments upfront and obviously have a fair idea whether the Greywater's a practical solution for you own backyard. Here are some pictures. And just while we're looking at these, let me hand out some parts for you guys. This is a beauty over here; this is--usually passed those rounds. This is a 3-way brass valve. It's really considered like the heart of the laundry to landscape system. And it gives us the ability to turn a system on, to take the water out to the landscape or to turn it off or if you like back to the sewer line, if we wash in those dirty diapers or we're using bleach or, you know, any of the potential health risk that, you know, may come from pathogens in that water. So it's important to have that facility to turn it on-off. Other key features to note here, the auto vents, anti-siphon device actually breaks vacuum in a system. And the one inch diameter pipe is important because it's consistent with the hose, typically coming at the back of the washing machine. So there are no alterations with water pressure that could create some, you know, perhaps some foreseen problems further down the line. We want to keep it nice, stable, and consistent. And then the system won't let us down. Here are some pictures of an actual installation going on. We can see on the left-hand side here, this is where the water is finally emitted. So these are the actual mulch a basin that we talked about, it shows an emitter coming out here. The code does require that water--grey water is emitted two inches below the soil surface. That's a health and safety concern that we have to, you know, comply to. What we--kind of a clever design on this system is that we actually reuse the plant pots then we buy plants from a garden center. Cut the tops of them off. Cut a little hole about halfway up the plant pot and feed the emitter directly into that. That has a really nice way of obviously protecting the emitters. It keeps it suspended off the ground level. So it actually stops any root growth that could over time, root grow into search of water and grow into those holes and clog it up. And it also keeps it covered and keeps it identified. So overtime, you know, there will be adjustments that you need to make to your irrigation zones. And this is an easy way to mark them. What a lot of people do to make it a bit more aesthetically pleasant is cover it with a rock or a natural stone of some kind. And then you have your markers there, and you know exactly where the water is coming out. We do bury and stake the tubing, so once that system is completely installed obviously there will be no visible piping here. So that's partly buried and then covered with dirt and mulch over the top. And the half inch irrigation line is just a way that we could--get to control pressure and make adjustments if we need to, so the right amount of water gets to the right amount of zones that we create. Here's a picture of a-–example of this emitter here that's covered under a natural stone that is code compliant because its not accessible for children or pets, two inches underground. And then on the other side there we can see an example of a non-code compliant. It emits water on both grounds which--which isn't legal. And just to wrap-up that on this example, this is a great example of a typical laundry to landscape installation. Obviously, we stressed the importance here of labeling. That's for, you know, education. It's information for those that are, you know, less familiar with the system. They can obviously come and see which direction they need to switch the tap. If you're obviously renting a home or you're selling it on, labeling is very important. We can see here a very typical installation where the Greywater is--and this is on the far corner, is focused on the trees. So we have six trees, I think, in the yard here, and then a veggie bed in the middle, which is irrigated with freshwater. Important point to note there is that Greywater is legal and completely safe for food grown above the soil surface. So any food, like root-crops, obviously that are grown in the ground; Greywater isn't advised and it isn't legal for use there. So focus on trees, vines, bushes, shrubs. Quick breakdown of cost. This was a self install, about a $150. Fifteen gallon went into a high efficiency machine. So, that's a 15 gallon load was the calculated how many loads a typical household would do a week. And then distribute it based on the soil type, the size, and the type of plants, and obviously the climate zone that the yard is in. That would be a quick pause here and any quick questions on this particular example? >> What about the temperature pressure that the water is coming up so hot, it could burn flesh? >> BULLOCK: Yeah. My experience is hot water to be avoided, particularly for young plants. Maybe, kind of, pull Laura into that too. You have--do you have any advice on that one? >> ALLEN: Yeah, when it goes through all the piping and then after it soaks to the mulch layer and by the time it gets to the roots it's cooled down a lot. So I've never seen that an issue. But again, you wouldn't water like seedlings or something very small and fragile. These are setup for more perennials and larger plants that have a huge--a big area. So, if by chance it did damage one root the plant would have thousands of other roots to draw from. So it's really, kind of, a non-issue. But then we also encourage people to, you know, use warm or cold water too as it saves energy. >> It never got into us--to only use the new energy efficient washing machine and it says we should only use EGE detergents? Are those compatible with, you know, non-toxic, and stuff you can use on your... >> ALLEN: Yeah, definitely Ecos is a really common brand. The easiest to find that's Greywater friendly and it's compatible with all the different types of machines. >> BULLOCK: [INDISTINCT] Sell at Costco. >> ALLEN: Yeah. >> BULLOCK: Ecos, yeah. It's a little easier. All right, thank you. Back to you. >> ALLEN: I just want to show two other parts of this. So, in the outside, it's a tubing, it's a high-density polyethylene, which is kind of a more environmentally friendly plastic. And the emitters Gregg was talking about, they're not--they're really different than like drip emitter. It's actually just an opening. This is a T, so its one inch by half inch. So it's reduced a little bit, but it's still a half inch opening, so if there was hair or lint, or anything it could fall out there, it wouldn't clog. So in Greywater emitter it's not going to be the same as a drip emitter, this is more like an outlet for the water to come through. And then also, I just want to show you, kind of, newer product for Greywater. Well, it's actually for irrigation, but we're going to start using this. It's called "Blu-Lock." And it's a--all the fittings and the tubing is all--the high-density polyethylene which is just a better type of plastic. This is a PVC fitting, which is, you know, PVC is the worst kind of plastic. So the next kind of system--now we're, kind of, totally jumping to a different type of system. The other system Gregg explained was for a washing machine. It was not altering the plumbing. The pump from machine was just pumping out the water through its hose. And then, we just connected to that hose, the valve. And so it setup a whole different system. We didn't alter the household plumbing in any way. This kind of system from showers or sinks, this is drainage plumbing so you actually have to get under your fixtures. So usually under the house, in a crawlspace, in a basement, maybe on the side of your house if you have external plumbing and you're actually going to have to alter the plumbing. So it's a totally different type of system and it has, you know, different ways it's used. So this system, I'm going to show an example from my shower. This is--these--all these systems require a permit, because you're altering your plumbing. So for this, the first thing you have to do is identify what drain it is, make sure you have the right one. You're going to cut into that, and install an--it's called a "3-way valve", but it actually just goes in two directions. So these ones bigger because with drainage plumbing, the water has to flow by gravity through either inch and a half or two inch pipes. So it's the same concept as the brass one that went around. It's just bigger. This one is made out of plastic. It turn--you turn the handle and it turns off one side or the other. And this ones squeaks, so be ready when it comes around, and you can look inside and you see there's a ball that kind of rotates and its shuts off one side or the other. So this would be under you house. You can add a motor to this incase your crawlspace is really small and you don't want to crawl down there to turn it. You can add a motor to this and run a switch into your bathroom. That's definitely a possibility or if you can access it, you just manually turn it. So, when you have that installed--like you can see in that picture number three, the grey water comes in, and that can either go to this Greywater irrigation side or to the sewer. And you just turn that valve, whenever you need to. If it's raining outside or if you're going to bleach out your tub or for whatever reason you don't want it to go outside. So the--I want to describe one kind of shower system, it's called a "branched drain." And this one--the materials again they're a couple $100. It's a little more usually than the laundry type system. Installation, it depends. You know, $1,000 to $3,000--the complexity of it really depends on the yard. And the plumbing and there's a lot of variables. And also--let me go back real quick to that other slide. You can imagine if you had a concrete foundation, you can't get under there. So, in there are some houses you're at and retrofits you actually can't use this type of Greywater System. You have to be able to access the pipes. So assuming you can access your pipes, this system is a gravity base system. So, there's--it's just flowing, it doesn't have any storage and it doesn't have any filters again. It's a very simple and elegant system. How it works is the water all flows out to one pipe and because you don't want to send all of your shower water to one plant, you divide it up with flow splitters. [PAUSE] So we're using regular ABS drainage plumbing pipe. So it comes in and this splitter divides the flow equally in half. So you now--how--now you've half of your water going to one side and half to the other and you put in the second one, maybe a third. So you're dividing up your flow into half, eights, quarters, sixteenth's. And so you'd really want to match how much water do you use and then how much do your plants want. And this is all going to be outside in your landscape. That little white thing is a clean out. You can unscrew it. So here's a picture. This is an installation before the landscaping was done. So you can see the Greywater is coming in. The flow splitter is stationary on a brick. So it's level and then all the rest of the system is slopping down. So you can see that future tree is going to be irrigated on both sides and that kind of sunken area, that's going to be filled with mulch. So the Greywater goes to the mulch. And here's another picture. This one is an existing landscape. So this type of system it does take a lot of work to install because you're trenching and sloping and making sure it's got a good slope, so all the water flows out. But once it's done, it's very, you know, there's really nothing to break. No moving parts. It's just flowing out into your landscape. You're dividing it up, you can see on the--on the right side, it's going to four different outlet. That's from a pretty high used sink. So it's going to four different mulch basins with some established fruit trees. And then the end where it terminates to the landscape, that middle picture [PAUSE] so it comes into--this is called the valve box. It's an irrigation valve box and Gregg described how to make this out of that plastic planter. You can buy them or you can make them yourself. But the water comes in to the middle. This is a ground level. So it's all buried up to here. The water's coming in. It's dropping through the air so roots don't grow in and then it's soaking down into the ground. And this is a place you can access, you can look in. You could cover this with the stone, you can see on the left, that's an almost finished installation, so the pipe is still slightly exposed coming to that valve box area to the drip line of the tree. And then on the right, that one's totally finished. Everything's covered, there's a stone on top. And you really, you know, can't see anything except for the--the access plant. >> [INDISTINCT]? >> ALLEN: Uh-um. >> [INDISTINCT] surround our place, the building [INDISTINCT]. >> ALLEN: Yeah. There's that box on the code, there's a whole turf of setbacks. You can't be--I believe that it's two feet from a building, a foot and a half from a property line. There's definitely a setback if you're near a water source or lots of other considerations. So that's the details that you would want to research or ask your installer. [PAUSE] So here's a kind of picture of a finished system. This is from one shower. Again it's all subsurface, there's nothing to see, it's all gravity flowed. There's, you know, just flowing out by gravity and there's no storage. So you're taking a shower, its being spread out through this branch distribution system under the ground and soaking into the ground. And all those blue areas represent where the Greywater coming out. In this yard a bunch of really--new fruit trees are planted the same time as the installation. So you can see everything kind of small. But all that will get really big. And this is in the front yard, so if people are walking down on the street, they would really have no idea that this entire yard is being irrigated by a Greywater. It's very, you know, subtle and discreet. Do you have any questions about the branched drain system? Nope? Okay. So, let start really quick. Some common errors and this is sort of from the legacy of systems of the past, you know, a couple of decades. It's also, kind of, misappropriating information about other types of irrigation. So common errors are storage tank, like having a big tank to store water, pump zealous, people want to pump to the roof or the top of their property or all over the place and filters that need changing. So I just want to show you one, kind of, example of someone's idea and I want you guys to help--help them. So this person said, "I'm going to pump my Greywater to the top of my property. Store it in two 500 gallon tanks, then gravity flow it down the hill to irrigate through a soaker hose." Did you see any potential issues with this? >> [INDISTINCT] water [INDISTINCT] wrong. >> ALLEN: It's all wrong? Well, you want something specific? >> Now, I'd be specific [INDISTINCT] I suppose to store it and I'm supposed to use a soaker hose. >> ALLEN: Yes, soaker. You guys know a soaker hose is? It's--the water kind of whips out. It's got a very, very small outlet. It's usually clogged just with regular water. So you can imagine if you put Greywater into the soaker hose. It'll probably clog in like, I don't know, 30 seconds? Could be a minute. Yeah and the top of the property, sometimes you have to pump. If you have a hill, a lot of, you know, San Francisco homes or places with--on hills, of houses down at the bottom all the landscapes beams up at the top, you do have to pump. But usually, you want to pump just the lowest amount possible. So pump to the plants you want to water and don't pump to the top of your property and then gravity flow down. You've just kind of defeated the--the purpose of the pump. So there's another one, but I'm going to skip that one. So really briefly, I just want to show you kind of the other type of system. The more high--high tech, more complex system. If people want to irrigate lawns or lots of really small plants that do need the type of irrigation that drip irrigation performs, you're going to be looking at this other type of system. It's called Sand Filter to Drip Irrigation. And this system, the cost to them really goes up. You know, $7,000-$10,000, maybe even more. They're--they're really just a lot--a lot more expensive and a lot more complex. And these pictures are from ReWater, it's one of the oldest companies that does this kind of system. They, you know, they do lawns, they do other things and you know, we encourage instead of lawns having other things that you can water. But if people need lawns with Greywater, that's the other type of system you'll be looking into. And just to give you, just as a quick kind of sense of the difference in scale, here's a schematic. So the Greywater goes into a big--as temporary tank called the surge tank. It's pumped out through a filter. The filter's automatically cleaned. So it has to have special protection, so you don't accidentally pump the Greywater into the clean drinking water side so it's called an RP or reduced pressure backflow preventer in some cities, don't allow those. So permitting gets a lot more complex. But you do have, you know, a lot of control. There's controllers that can say, "oh, there's not enough Greywater, I want more freshwater to come in." So you really can have just--your Greywater can be compatible with an existing--with a system that works like a regular drip irrigation system. So you go on vacation, it's still getting watered. The other types of systems just don't--they don't have this level of complexity to them. So I just wanted to give you the--the range of that. And one example on the commercial scale, these, you know, systems again are going to be more complex. So this is an example--the--a commercial laundry mat is irrigating the whole kind of mini mall shopping area. This is from that company ReWater in Chula Vista. So under that handicap parking space, there's a big underground temporary tank that the water comes in to and then it's pump out, filtered to the subsurface drip irrigation. So definitely possible, there are examples of big apartment buildings doing this and other areas with this other type of Greywater system. [PAUSE] >> BULLOCK: Okay. So let's cut and do a recap. Just over the--the highlights of the presentation so far. You know, firstly it's encouraging you to think about what we traditionally think of as a waste product, waste water and finding a resource for it again or a need for it again and that's the first thing. You know, thinking about Greywater as a resource, saves us water which is a scarce resource, obviously as we know in this state. Saves us money, saves us energy and chemicals that are excessively used in sewage treatment plants, by the way. It encourages healthy product use, so by thinking about the relationship of, you know, for instance, what we--either wash our selves with, or wash our clothes with and the relationship that it has with the soil and if you want to take it as far as what the food we eat. Well, you know that whole cycle an education and understanding, well, ultimately encourage us to use healthier products. We'll be more in touch with that--the implications of such. It does get us out on our backyards which, I for one thing--is a good thing if we're surrounded by a lot of busy lives and technology. So sometimes, it's--its nice to be out there in the quiet and the peace. It facilitates local food production and community and I think this is a very important point. Growing food, sharing food, gets us out of our suburban homes and--actually, kind of, meeting each other again which I think will be an important step for us as we look into the next 10 maybe 20 years. Greywater could be at the heart of that. It protects our oceans and rivers. Its part of the solution as Laura said when we looked at the 10% desalination offset could be a significant contribution. Ten percent across California is not that much to ask for. So I want you to take away from this that there is something that we can do that would make a difference. It redefines our relationship with water because we're educated about it. We understand where it's coming from, where it's going to and we're making significant improvement into that whole system of process. It does create green jobs. I think, you know, very important obviously from where we are as a country, economically and around the world, Greywater can be a huge part of that and I guess, I'm living proof of that. It's legal, it's fun and it's inexpensive. So if nothing else will convince you this afternoon, I promise you, it is those things. All right, so, onto the last part of our presentation title obviously we've covered how Greywater can green a parched state. What could you do as Googlers to help this situation? I think the first part of this obviously, we think about reduce, reuse, recycle. So the first part of this is, you know, just conserving water in the first place. How do we make slight adjustments in our, you know, lives that--can reuse them, reduce the water we use in the first place. And not that we do use because plants love Greywater, obviously we can reuse that for irrigation purposes. Another idea that I want to leave with you, that we have talked to one or two inside Googlers, is the opportunity here to do something with your onsite laundry facility, and redirect that Greywater to create something beautiful and productive and wholly sustainable. I have a picture here of a very beautiful established kiwi vine on a trellis. Just as a suggestion, obviously, there's potential also for fruit tree orchards taking again something that we consider a waste product, and giving it value again, and creating something beautiful and productive out of this. So, were going to leave you with that and obviously you can let us know if that's something that would be of interest with you. I'm also interested if there is any other ideas coming from you guys today? Alright, thank you. OK, so any--any other questions? >> You didn't mention that systems quite, prior to 1999 were technically illegal. Does that include like things the cities were doing? So it's all like Greywater systems like for irrigation and such? >> ALLEN: It was pirated last year, 2009. There--It was possible to get a legal system. There are, you know, a few exempt. There's estimated 200 legal systems versus 1.6 million illegal systems. So, not that there were none, it's just that the percentage was very small. And most of the ones that were done legally that got a permit they had an engineered design and stamped the drawing so it wasn't really accessible to the average person. That's why most homeowners or, you know, interested renters or whoever wanted to do it, they just did it and they weren't able to do it legally. So the examples you've seen, they were probably done legally but with an engineered design stamp which kind of removes liability from cities. >> So I have a question on the same line. It seems like that if you need to do this, you know, since we are on our own or with lot of the laws are changing things in our system. What are the municipalities doing? Like Greywater from--what Greywater from black water is, so to speak. And treat it enough to use it as Greywater. Are new subdivision today require to have like, you know, a pure water line and Greywater line before they give you the property? Are there projects like that? >> ALLEN: There... >> This could be done on a massive scale. Any new subdivision coming in has to have Greywater for every property? >> ALLEN: Yes, some areas like Tucson, Arizona, they have a mandate that every new construct--new building has to have it's, it's called a stub out. So the Greywater is separate and there's a place to access it. That's the only place to my knowledge that's done that. There's been a talk and general plan in other places of doing that, and I believe some town--counties in California had done that in the past but currently that's not just like a mass blanket thing that's happening but it--there are in some examples and that's something that we should all be pushing for. For municipalities, water districts are supporting Greywater in a few ways. There are rebates that are happening. Sonoma County has some Greywater rebates. There's a couple of example like Santa Rosa, City of Santa Rosa is... >> BULLOCK: San Francisco is developing a rebate. . >> ALLEN: San Francisco is developing a rebate program. There are some examples of that happening. Its still-- even though it happened last year, it still sort of new that people can support it that way. The other answer to your question on the large scale; there's reclaimed water or recycled water which is different because it's all the waste water, everything together; industry, toilets, everything goes to the plant. They treat it, then they have a higher treatment process to treat it to tertiary standards and they pump it back through purple pipe. And that's just another--it's a--it's a different type of situation. But there are--that's happening. Getting that water is--they only gave it to really large water users because it's expensive to run that new pipeline back. >> All the island irrigation through out the years... >> ALLEN: Yeah. >> All this reclaimed water. >> ALLEN: Reclaimed water, yeah. >> So, I mean it's possible on a massive scale. So, I'm just wondering why aren't provisions being made to do that? >> ALLEN: I think it's the infrastructure cost. It's very expensive to win--like if you imagine a city that's already built to get that-- a new pipeline they have to dig up this--all the street everywhere and bring it back. So it's very expensive to do that but it is happening. Greywater is a lower cost decentralized alternatives. So, you can just keep the water that you're using, use it appropriately match the needs. And you don't know need to treat it to that level and send it all the way over there and then all the way back. So, it's a different alternative. >> I know that in Bureau, they actually take Greywater to flush toilets. But according to what you said, does the period (ph) requires storage which you do not recommend? >> ALLEN: Yeah. So there's--the question is about using toilet flush--Greywater for toilet flushing and in Europe it is very common. The storage, it's an--if you're using it for outdoor irrigation, you don't want to store it, you want to just use it. For toilet flushing, there will be some temporary storage that water is filtered, it's disinfected, so it's treated to be able to be stored. So, in a resident, if you're irrigating outside, there's really no reason to do that. You wouldn't--so it depends on the context. And in Europe, there's--and in Australia too, there's companies that will sell you like a mini treatment plant that will fit like in your basement or, you know, if your apartment building and then, you know, garage and they will treat the Greywater to the quality needed to flush toilets and there's several companies that have been very successful. The regulatory climate of the United States is not very supportive yet to that. So, it's kind of we're taking baby steps, you know, from now, we can do sub-service outdoor irrigation legally and the next step will probably be indoor use with appropriate regulations in place. >> So as you--as you can see that right now, I don't know how complicated this problem... >> ALLEN: Yeah. >> ... Probably might be. Possible is to get permits but we just decided that [INDISTINCT] if we kind of flush the toilet and our toilets, like, 1.5 gallons [INDISTINCT] this whole system for essentially like 5 gallon a day. >> ALLEN: Yeah. And for toilet flushing, rain water is a much lower hanging fruit because it starts out so much cleaner. So more--around--in this area, systems that collect rain water then they used it to flush toilet, that's a lot better. The regulation for California residential Greywater says it's basically you have to treat it to the same quality as the reclaimed water plant does and--which is daily testing and its--its just economically unfeasible for people right now. But that's something, again, that will be changing I think in the future. >> BULLOCK: And you can store rainwater. >> ALLEN: Yeah. >> BULLOCK: So, it kind of gave you that added advantage. [PAUSE] Any other questions? Thank you so much. Thank you for your time. We appreciate it.