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Is Greywater Recycling The Way Forward In Britain?

The changing climate has brought a variety of responses around the world, many of which could be adopted in the UK more than they have been so far. It might surprise some to see that China is one of the countries from which much could be learned.

To listen to Donald Trump at Davos, one might believe that China had no interest in being green, with his claims including the extraordinary statement that China produces huge amounts of wind turbines for everyone else but has no wind farms of its own.

In fact, China now produces more electricity from wind power than any other country in the world. If a few years ago the country was the biggest fossil fuel polluter on the planet, things are now changing rapidly.

Wind power is not the only way in which China is rapidly becoming greener. A recent Guardian article highlighted how greywater recycling has become a common practice, with this becoming a design feature of large buildings in urban areas.

Why Is The Bird’s Nest Stadium So Good At Using Greywater?

The article highlighted how one of the prime examples of this is the Bird’s Nest Stadium in Beijing, host venue of the 2008 Olympics, where the familiar metal lattice framework contains pipes that funnel captured rainwater into tanks.

While half the needs of the stadium are met by this rainwater, including toilets and watering the field, around 30 per cent of water requirements across the whole of Beijing are met through the use of recycled water, from rain to bathwater.

The article noted this is not simply a new practice to deal with modern environmental concerns and the pressures of serving a population of 1.4 billion that is becoming increasingly urbanised; It harks back to water challenges dating back centuries.

In particular, rainwater storage ponds were used in past centuries to tackle shortages that were common in the drier north of the country, with this historical understanding of the need to deal with the climate challenge of the day now being reshaped for modern China.

Why Would The UK Benefit From More Greywater Use?

However, there is no reason to assume this is exceptional. Plenty of other countries face their own challenges of meeting their water supply needs in a changing climate, while also tackling threats to urban life, such as flash flooding. The UK is among them.

It is customary to see Britain as a rainy country, notoriously so in cities like Manchester and in upland rural areas, but regions such as the East of England are comparatively arid and the growing reality is that the UK is increasingly prone to floods and droughts alike.

This makes rainwater harvesting and the wider use of greywater recycling invaluable. The more water that can be captured and stored, the less that makes it into streams and rivers with consequences downstream.  

Furthermore, using recycled water means less pressure on depleted reservoirs during prolonged dry spells.  

What Do You Need To Consider If You Wish To Recycle Greywater?

If you want your business to recycle greywater, we can help by providing a full service, from assessing your needs and establishing the potential your building possesses, to installing the equipment you need.

Among the considerations will be:

•       Does your building have a flat or sloped roof?
•       How large is the building, in particular in relation to its roof space and the number of floors?
•       Do you want to use greywater not just for toilets, but also for measures such as watering lawns or maintaining a green roof?
•       How much water does your business normally use and for what purposes?
•       Do you need a gravity-based system that collects water from the roof and stores it there, or a pump system that brings water up from tanks stored at ground level or below?

These and other matters can be taken into account as we assess what can be done and how you can make use of greywater recycling.

A critical consideration is legal compliance. A case study published by Ofwat on Anglian Water, the water company covering the driest part of the UK, described how the company became concerned that rainwater recycling systems fitted in new properties might be unsafe.

The specific concern centred on the fact that some of the installations fitted between 2015 and 2020 might have been modified in unauthorised ways and that this could lead to the contamination of water used for drinking and washing.

Such fears turned out to be justified, as 70 per cent of the inspections found them to be non-compliant and unsafe, putting people’s health at risk. The shortcomings were blamed on poor products, design or maintenance.

With our help, we can ensure you get the greywater recycling systems you need, which can serve you well while remaining safe to use for many years.