It is quite a challenge to do online research water treatment for recycling or re-use. A variety of keywords is required to bring up all the various aspects, and some of the websites are still somewhat poorly setup in terms of making the best of the search engines. For many companies, I eventually found them via the accreditation list and then searched on their company names, since they had not come up before. Keywords used: grey water, gray water, black water, sewerage, septic, wastewater, storm water, management, treatment, divertion, filtration etc.
So I have begun this series of articles to gather the various pieces of information together with some explanation, rather than just a list of bookmarks. In addition, some sites make one feel like it is too hard, but it is not really - after all being sustainable as far as one’s own water and sewerage is how many people live, day to day.
Motivation to capture your own rainwater, and recycle where possible - why flush with drinking quality water?
http://www.greenhouse.gov.au/yourhome/technical/fs20.htm
See the Sydney water website for information on the levels of treatment of sewerage before being discharged into the sea, around Sydney. The ocean is being used as secondary treatment plant.
Ways of saving, re-cycling and re-using water
www.ecologicalhomes.com.au/wastewater_systems.htm has a reasonable good description of the various ways of treating waste water.
The ATA has a table to help you figure out which kind of grey water system to go for. http://www.ata.org.au/wp-content/greywater_rr.pdf
If you wish to make your home fully independent and sustainable as far as water goes, (ie: gather your own rainwater, recycle what water you can, and finally deal with your own sewerage), it appears that one may need two systems. IE: Ver few systems are accredited in NSW for a full cycle re-use. you can of course add your own additional steps like Michael Mobb’s did. Most systems exist to treat waste water and they are accredited to a permitted use of irrrigation. A few are accredited for re-use in the toilet.
It has been done - case studies
The sanctuary magazine has some case studies - read the text for grey and black water examples, such as the “touching lightly” one.
Michael Mobb’s sustainable house in Chippendales was made sustainable many years ago with complete sewerage (black) water treatment. He also lists other case studies.
See other water related posts in the sustainability category for more information.