How do you handle grey water (family of 5)

wbwood wrote:

musicman54 wrote:
we have the thetford `grey ones easer to dump we use it for grey

What we have also.

what size we have 35 gal

musicman54 wrote:
we have the thetford `grey ones easer to dump we use it for grey

What we have also.

mowermech wrote:

wbwood wrote:

mowermech wrote:
"Much easier to tote a garbage bag to a trash can than washing dishes."

IF there is a garbage can. If you come out West, keep in mind that many remote sites are "Pack It In, Pack It Out" areas. You must take all your trash home with you, the campgrounds have no garbage service and no dump station.
"Primitive" camping at its finest!
Just the way we like it.

Much rather cart a trash bag with me than not have anywhere to put water or black waste.

THAT is why I keep mentioning the fact that VERY FEW Forest Service campgrounds out here have dump stations (actually I don't recall seeing ANY), and very few have trash pickup (I know of a couple, near Red Lodge).
I have seen a tourist in a campground with a full tote and no place to dump it. He was VERY frustrated. I think he had a family member help him lift it up and dump it into a vault toilet (that's illegal!).
For those who just can't conserve water, if you come out West I strongly recommend that you limit yourself to commercial full hook up RV parks. Avoid Forest Service campgrounds and State Parks, you won't be happy there for more than a day.

I really appreciate this. My sister lives in NorCal, so I know a little about it, but not to that extent.

And keep the thoughts and suggestions coming-- I'm reading. Thank you.

we have the thetford `grey ones easer to dump we use it for grey

I agree mowermech....you need to be prepared ahead of time to be able to handle the situation. being able to use thing like paper plates/plastic ware and throwing them in a trash bag is much easier to pack out than the space that is needed in a gray tank from washing plates and silverware. At least paper plates can be tossed in the fire pit at night.

wbwood wrote:

mowermech wrote:
"Much easier to tote a garbage bag to a trash can than washing dishes."

IF there is a garbage can. If you come out West, keep in mind that many remote sites are "Pack It In, Pack It Out" areas. You must take all your trash home with you, the campgrounds have no garbage service and no dump station.
"Primitive" camping at its finest!
Just the way we like it.

Much rather cart a trash bag with me than not have anywhere to put water or black waste.

THAT is why I keep mentioning the fact that VERY FEW Forest Service campgrounds out here have dump stations (actually I don't recall seeing ANY), and very few have trash pickup (I know of a couple, near Red Lodge).
I have seen a tourist in a campground with a full tote and no place to dump it. He was VERY frustrated. I think he had a family member help him lift it up and dump it into a vault toilet (that's illegal!).
For those who just can't conserve water, if you come out West I strongly recommend that you limit yourself to commercial full hook up RV parks. Avoid Forest Service campgrounds and State Parks, you won't be happy there for more than a day.

We don't conserve very well so we run into the same problem with gray water. We don't often do paper plates and plastic ware. Also, when it is hot as hell in the summer and I am sweating getting everything setting up, I am taking a shower later, water levels be damned.

We use a 32 gallon tote and empty the gray every other day. It's not a big deal to fill it, hitch it to the truck, and drive it a short distance to the dump station.

Look for blue totes used on Craigslist. I see them on there from time to time, and often they say they were only used a couple of times.

Safe travels!

I just posted this on another thread but may fit this one as well...

One of the best setups Ive seen was having the tote sitting in the back of the truck be an using a 12VDC FLOWJET PUMP to transfer tank water to it. The guy said make sure the tote was bigger than your biggest tank on the trailer you are emptying. He would just empty the trailer tank into the tote using the FLOJET pump - unhook the hose from the FLOJET and hang up high on the truck bed. Drive the truck to the dump and gravity feed the tote tank down the dump. Couldn't be any easier than this...

Roy Ken

TInmania wrote:

wbwood wrote:

As someone else mentioned, get the oxygenics shower head. It works.

For hand washing, get some of the anti bacterial hand cleaner that you don't need water for, or use the outside shower for it.

For dish washing, get a plastic tub and wash your dishes in it and then pour the left over dish water into the toilet. Try to use the least amount of water possible. If we are not hooked up to a sewer we try to use paper plates as much as possible as well plastic throw away utensils and cups. Much easier to tote a garbage bag to a trash can than washing dishes. We do most of our cooking outside and use as little pots/pans as necessary.

I see a lot of advise to use paper plates and plastic throwaways to conserve water. Heck I do it myself.

But in looking at the whole picture is that really wise? We are saving some room in the grey water tank for sure. But the cost to the environment from manufacturing and disposing of those products is surely worse than the problem they solved

So I'm going to, at the very least, stop using disposable plastic utensils. If paper plates they will be paper only and no styrofoam or plastic.




Michael

Just use your hands like they used to do.. Better for the environment that way. As the gas from your tow vehicle/motorhome isn't already doing the environment damage. Nor the tires that are on them. Or the plastic on the dashboards and etc.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for the environment. People can recycle as they choose. I compare the pick and choose of what's good for the environment similar to those that pick and choose what laws they want follow or church goers picking and choosing the part of the bible they want to follow/not follow.

The option of plastic ware was an idea. Nothing more.

mowermech wrote:
"Much easier to tote a garbage bag to a trash can than washing dishes."

IF there is a garbage can. If you come out West, keep in mind that many remote sites are "Pack It In, Pack It Out" areas. You must take all your trash home with you, the campgrounds have no garbage service and no dump station.
"Primitive" camping at its finest!
Just the way we like it.

Much rather cart a trash bag with me than not have anywhere to put water or black waste.