How do you dispose of sink water

Hello, I've been researching gray water systems and methods for my off-grid cabin.  I've read that kitchen sink water with even microscopic food particles is not gray water but black water.  I would like to know how people are disposing of sink water.

Thank you!

In New York State, any water that has touched a human body is black water... so there is effectively no such thing as gray water, except maybe washing machine discharge. If you have to follow the rules, you can't have gray water treatment.

Hi Glenn, my off-grid cabin is in Oklahoma.
Thanks

Maybe I am a little fast and loose, but I wouldn't blink at utilizing sink water for plants as long as I knew what was in it. I'd ensure any soaps were greywater friendly and keep an eye for heavy oil/sediment buildup.

When in doubt, put it in a compost heap! Just don't tell the feds...

Cameron Green wrote:Hello, I've been researching gray water systems and methods for my off-grid cabin.  I've read that sink water with even microscopic food particles is not gray water but black water.  I would like to know how people are disposing of sink water.

Thank you!

I've seen folks using bathroom sink water to fill the toilet (sink drain higher than toilet tank). I haven't seen a kitchen sink setup yet, I'm looking forward to other peoples ideas on this.
John

Using graywater for secondary purposes in the home is an excellent idea, and you can do it without any authority finding out. I would check on exactly what makes it gray or black in your state, and if there is any legal graywater try to make a good treatment plan. Watering plants especially in a greenhouse comes to mind. What happens to that in winter, though? (If you are in a hard freeze climate.) Filling a toilet tank makes perfect sense,though you have to deal with storage of sink water until the tank needs it.

We run an annual one-weekend festival on my land including camping, and for the outdoor showers I needed to arrange it so that the showers all drained into the septic tank.

Since I put my hands in dishwater I am not afraid of it.

Call it what you want.

I have never watered vegetables with dishwater.

I have watered trees with dishwater or shower water to keep the trees from dying during a drought.

Currently, my dishwater and washing machine water go into French drains.

My shower water is hooked up with the bathroom so all that water goes into the septic tank.

At the house in Bulgaria, we use a washing up bowl in the sink for handwashing our dishes. Provided it's not had anything really greasy washed in it (I wipe any fat out first with paper towel which becomes firestarter) if goes on the grapevine or the pumpkin vines closest to the kitchen door. Unfortunately shower water goes to the cesspit and I can't work out any way to divert it. No washing machine yet, everything is handwashed. That also goes on the garden, but not on leaf veggies apart from the very tall amaranth greens where I won't be bending to pick, anyway.

I have no idea what the local regulations are about grey water in Bulgaria,  and I don't want to know! Thankfully where I live it shouldn't be an issue. As long as other people aren't inconvenienced or affected, rules tend to be ignored. I don't think anything I put on my garden will contaminate the ground water and be an problem for others. The climate is dry, the water table is too deep  for most folk to bother with wells, and the plants will suck everything up before it gets anywhere near ground water.

I built an off grid cabin 20 years ago.  

In the beginning I piped the sink directly out of the house to some oak trees.  

 
Now I have built up a bit of a garden area too.
 

I would love to do a pond and cattails too at some point.  

To me, it feels really nice to use all that nutrient from rinsing out my dishes.  


The system works great winter and summer.

spitballing ideas here, how about double bowl kitchen sink. one drain to reuse, other one to go direct to septic. Wash the nastiness in the left side and cleaner stuff in the right. yes it would be a plumbing crazy network but might help to tune your efforts to minimize waste.