Recycling shower water

One of the things I enjoy is taking a nice luke-warm or hot shower depending on the season. In my house, it takes a while for the hot water to come through and I always thought that it was such a great waste to let all that good water go down the drain. Well, we finally did something about that last night. We directed the shower water to a 10 litre bucket whilst waiting for it to heat up. It came up to 8 litres of water before the water got hot enough to not make one jump in cold shock! Wow, that’s a lot of good water wasted which could be used in the laundry, toilet or garden.

Matt and I have replaced commercial soaps and shampoo with baking soda and vinegar since 2006, so the grey water is effectively useful for the above purpose too. With that in mind, I put another bucket in the shower with me, standing above it (it really is easier than you imagine) I managed to collect another 8 litres after a 7-minute shower (longer then my usual 3-minute shower as we were covered in salt and sand after a great swim at Foxton beach). Between Matt & I, we collected a descent amount of recycled water to water my extremely dry flower garden in the front garden last night, and it felt good!! Another added advantage, we now have reason to visit the neglected front garden every day.