ENVR 102 Homework:

Sewage and Wastewater, part 2

Name:____Dugan Hobbs________________
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1. We hear a lot about reduce, reuse, recycle regarding solid waste, but the same principles can apply to liquid
waste as well. Some countries (and states in the western US) are diverting their gray (or grey) water to reduce
loads on treatment plants and use water more efficiently. First, read Greywater Action’s page on grey water
projects: https://greywateraction.org/greywater-reuse/
a. What is greywater? And what is it not?

Grey water is water used in daily life like for showers and food production that is dirtied by daily use. This water is not to
be confused for black water that is way more toxic and has toxins that are harmful. Gray water comes from many areas
of the community. One place that Gray water is produced is when using water to clean dishes at resturaunts. Another
example is when you wash your hands and or take a shower, the water that goes down the drain mixes with the soaps,
products, and dirt you had on your body down the drain.

b. Briefly describe two ways that greywater can be reused.

Greywater can be used in many ways. One way to use the wastewater from daily activities are to put it into irrigation.
You can irrigate land using the grey water.

2. Read “A Tall Cool Drink of…Sewage?” article from The New York Timess:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/10/magazine/10wastewater-t.html?pagewanted=all (Psst…if this is behind a
paywall for you, there is a PDF of the article in the assignment module for this homework)
a. What is your position on recycled/reclaimed water? Are there some methods that are acceptable to you
and others that cross some kind of line (for example, treating sewage and releasing it into a river, as we
do in Wicomico County, versus directly drinking treated water)? Why do you feel this way?

I believe that recycling water is better than trying to get rid of it by dumping it with all of its toxins still in the water. I
believe that it is important to break down the crap that we put in our water and that that broken down water can be
able to be reused at some point when deemed healthy enough. I know that a lot of people think that this idea is grim to
release partially decomposed gray water back into the main water source, and I agree that releasing the passibly semi
still toxic water into the water is bad. It has been shown that the toxins in the water that were not broken-down cause
harm to the environments of the ocean and become pollutants that kill off the marine life and do more harm than good.
I believe that the original idea of breaking down the toxins is good, but we then need to use that water in a more
positive way like irrigation rather than causing more harm by dumping it back into the main water source. I feel that
 ENVR 102 Homework:
Sewage and Wastewater, part 2
dumping the gray water back into the main water source reverts all the good intention and action taken when trying to
treat the bad water, because in the end that bad water affects us ten times as much in the long run.