I'm hoping not to ignite the grey water dumping issue again, but this has bugged me for awhile. As tent campers all our grey water went back into the ground. Then, we got a PopUp with no grey tank, and had to collect it and dump it. Now even with our 58 gal tank in the TH, we can push its capacity to the limit over the course of an extended dry camping stay. Whenever I've been on private property, and checked with the owner, they have no problem with running the hose onto the ground.
Still, I've wondered if there would be a way to filter the water to make it more acceptable to drain it onto the ground.
So I tried this:
Got this filter that is intended for filtering fresh water, and has a garden hose fitting on each end.
Screwed it onto my sewer outlet, opened the grey valve, and used the trailer overnight. Washed some dishes, hands, and showered this morning. The "filtered" water started to trickle out, so I got a bucket to measure just how much it would drain over a period of time.
After about 12 hours, it had filled about 2 gal into the bucket,
So, at approx 4 gal/day, if you were camped somewhere for a week, that's 28 gallons.
My next step is to get a sample of the water tested and see just how well "filtered" it is.
The tank was empty before I started, and I'd guess there's probably 20 gal in there now. I added 5gal from a bucket, plus normal usage last night and this morning, so now I'm going to let it set and see what happens. It may clog and stop before all the water empties out, but I thought it was interesting to try it and see what happens.
I wasn't even sure if it would pass any water without being under pressure. I'm surprised that it did, and I'm guessing as the level in the tank increases, the hydraulic pressure would also increase, and maybe flow a little faster.
Reusing grey water is the law for drought states. They use systems that filter soaps and grease and solids, which is a little more sophisticated than the simple fresh water filter. The process is doable, and should be available in a kit form, for RV'ers. I think you are on to something here, but need a little more techno applied. If you have ever been in a sewer treatment plant, you would see the three, (or tertiary) process they use, for processing sewer water. At the end of the process they put the finished product into streams, as it is certified ready by the final test, that prove it of a quality that's acceptable. If sewage can be processed, and it is a combination of grey and black, there is an absolutely yes to processing grey waters from anywhere. I will see if there is a site with all the techno in the web and give the link. Until the system is made for the grey water process for RV's, it will remain a "grey area"!
In ref. to your testing, I would do three samples. 1) take a sample of water from the tap for a baseline, 2) fill the bucket with this tap water and sample to get a baseline of anything contained in the bucket, 3) test the filtered water and compare.
There is an increasing number of communities that are going to the toilet-to-tap system of filtering their public waters. It can be done.
There are 12v pumps, the one @ work is brand name TEEL, also there is the macerator pump, instead of using it on the black water, could be used on the gray water, depends on which valve is opened. This may give you the pressure you need to pressurize the filter. JMHO
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