INTRODUCTION

Greywater, e.g. wastewater from kitchen,

bathroom and shower sources, discarded
untreated on the street is a common
problem in urban and peri-urban
environments in low-income countries; it
damages infrastructure and becomes a
health risk due to mosquito breeding and
pathogen growth. In water scarce areas,
ecological sanitation grey water disposal
systems that reuse the grey water to grow
plants have been popular as they offer safer
disposal methods and can lead to reduced
water stress and increased food security.
Statement of the Problem
Straddling the Tropic of Cancer, Botswana has a sub-
tropical desert climate, with low rainfall, with annual
rainfall averaging just 460mm, Botswanas climate is arid
or semi-arid (low rainfall).This has affected the farming
industry in Botswana due to unavailability of water for
farming. The only solution is to use tap water which is a
waste of resources considering that a large amount of
money is used to treat the water before it is availed for
domestic use. Gardening activities using valuable potable
or fresh water has been rampant in Botswana and this has
caused negative impact on natural water resources and
has increased the cost of water treatment arising from
increased demand for freshwater.
Aims and Objectives
The objective of this project was to evaluate the the
potential of using grey water for irrigation in Botswana.
The evaluation was done with respect to technical
performance, soil and plant health and system
requirements in order to determine the future
applicability of these systems in Botswana. If necessary,
proposals should be made on ways to improve the design
or on suggestions for alternate systems that might be more
suitable for the conditions in Botswana.
Justification

It's a waste to irrigate with great quantities of drinking

water when plants thrive on used water containing small
bits of compost. Unlike a lot of ecological stopgap
measures, grey water reuse is a part of the fundamental
solution to many ecological problems and will probably
remain essentially unchanged in the distant future. The
benefits of grey water recycling include:

Lower fresh water use

Less strain on failing septic tank or treatment plant
Better treatment (topsoil is many times more effective
than subsoil or treatment plant)
Less energy and chemical use
Groundwater recharge
Plant growth
Reclamation of otherwise wasted nutrients
Increased awareness of and sensitivity to natural
cycles
GREYWATER REUSE
Greywater has been reused for irrigation purposes for
many years all over the world and specifically in countries
with very similar climatic conditions to Botswana, such as
Australia, Europe (Spain, Denmark), Japan, Israel,
Jordan and USA (California, New Mexico and Arizona).
Why should you reuse greywater?
Use less of our valuable potable or fresh water and save
thousands of litres of drinking water.
Reduce the impact on natural water resources by
reducing water consumption.
Save money on water bills.
Ensure a constant water supply for the garden.
Possibly add nutrients from the greywater that are
beneficial to plants and soil
Have the satisfaction of taking responsibility for efficient
use of a valuable, finite resource.
Reduce the flow to the sewerage system, thereby
reducing water treatment costs. Benefits of using
greywater
Depending on the source, greywater may contain small
and varying amounts of nitrogen and phosphorus, which
are potential sources of plant nutrients.
The soapy nature of greywater can sometimes act as a
pest repellent.
 It saves portable water.
GREYWATER SYSTEMS
The best solution for the reuse of greywater of
households in sewered areas is to reuse greywater in
such a manner that it does not need any treatment at
all. The reason for this is that household greywater
is regarded as the best for reuse because of its
relatively clean nature and does not require any
further cleaning. What is a greywater system? A
greywater system can be very simple, for instance
you can use a bucket to carry your bathroom water
outside to water a special plant. Other complex
systems are available. Between these two extremes
are many varieties of systems that you can use for
irrigating watering with household greywater. The
goal is to find the level of system that makes
maximum use of your greywater while minimising
your costs for the purchase, installation and
maintenance of your system.
Bucket system (Fig 4):
A simple bucket system can be used to
transport the greywater, by hand, from
the bathroom to garden. It is the
cheapest system but is inconvenient and
increases the possibility of contact and
contamination between the greywater
and people carrying the bucket .
Fig 4. Re-using greywater can be as
simple as placing a bucket under the
shower to collect used water. Top of the
range commercial greywater system:
Households in suburban sewered areas
have indoor plumbing and the
greywater is collected via pipes that
connect the source e.g. (bathroom
water) to the sewerage system.
The greywater system (Fig 5) is connected
directly to the outlet pipes of the bathroom
and the greywater is collected in a collection
or storage tank without coming into contact
with humans or even the open air. Before
collection, the greywater is filtered to
remove hair and lint. From the collection or
storage tank, the greywater is pumped to
irrigation pipes and distributed to the
garden.

Fig 5. A commercial greywater system

System design
In this filter style the water enters from below so
that the maximum amount of contact between the
water and sand is achieved. The method of
producing this up flow is explained
quite well by the figure below although in many
systems this action is achieved by pressure.
One advantage of this kind of filter is that it also
provides a matrix for biological colonies
to exist and contribute in the treatment process by
consuming the pollutants as well as
being a fine filter for trapping particles.
CONCLUSION
There are a lot of things to consider when designing a grey
water recycling system but it is
not so complex that it would be extremely difficult artefact
to create. All the designer needs to do is first decide on the
capabilities of the system and then carefully plan the
system based on those intended capabilities. Those
capabilities include
footprint; how much floor space is suitable for such a
device in a given environment
volume; how much grey water can the system effectively
treat
purity of treated grey water; what level of purity is
required for the intended end use
level of technology; decide the level of sophistication
required so that the system
can effectively operate at the desired condition and how
expensive the components
can reasonably be
expansion; is there a possibility that in the future more
capacity is required.
BENEFITS OF GREY WATER
RECYCLING

Use less of our valuable potable or

fresh water and save thousands of litres
of drinking water.
Reduce the impact on natural water
resources by reducing water
consumption.
Save money on water bills.
Ensure a constant water supply for the
garden.