Question about gray water...?

[d3500ram]

Not trying PO the mod, but rather a real question about gray water practices. To folks who choose to reply, don't be a troll. Mod closed two threads on the topic and I was trying to glean information...

Quoted from one of the threads that got closed is my real question on best practices regarding gray water:

ReneeG wrote:

d3500ram wrote:
Don't some campers not have gray tanks such that they MUST drain onto he ground?

Perhaps not the larger RV's but I believe there are some smaller TCs that do not have a gray tank.

Tent Trailers don't have tanks for gray so they use a hose to the outside and into a bucket.

Aha!
But lemme' ask as I am ignorant in this type of set-up... what is one supposed to do when the bucket is full? I cannot imagine a person putting a bucket of gray in their vehicle to pack out?

Perhaps one can carry it to a latrine, but depending on the distance I can envision a person not going that far to dispose. But many camping spots may not have a latrine.

Even with a bucket as a catch, I am guessing it ends up on the ground anyway???

For those types of RV's that do not have a gray tank (and subsequently use a bucket) what ends up with the retained water?

[Sjm9911]

Capture the water and dispose of it as the campground/ forestry service dictates. Pretty simple. If you need a container, aquatainers, buckets or waste tote. Never had a problem colecting and dumping the tote with my pup. The sink water does get nasty , as stated above, if everyone dumped that on the ground, no one would be able to/ want to camp there.

[Thunder_Mountai]

As a somewhat experienced boondocker I can offer a few suggestions. First, you have to manage your gray water before it goes into the tank. We catch the shower water while waiting it to get hot to water the dogs. The excess goes to water the landscape since it is not technically gray water. We catch kitchen sink water while waiting for it to get hot to make coffee or fill canteens for hiking or ATVing. We catch the kitchen sink water while waiting on it to get hot. Lots of happy plants. You are not dumping gray water if you follow these suggestions. You can stretch your gray water tank for several day using this method.

[dedmiston]

I think the take-away from this topic is that water isn't really the issue, it's the presence or absence of a bunch of junk in it.

While disposing of clean water is pretty much a victimless crime, dumping polluted water is horrible and we should all agree that it's the wrong thing to do. Dumping water with food waste, toothpaste, and detergents is wrong. It's littering and it's polluting.

If you just dump a little bit, you're only polluting a little bit, but you're still polluting. The part of your conscience that tells you to look both ways before you dump it is the part of your conscience that should actually be telling you not to dump it at all.

Pack it in, pack it out.

[JimK-NY]

The biggest step that can be taken to deal with gray water, is to conserve water in the first place. Big rigs can use a lot of water and that makes dumping gray water an issue, especially if there is a convenient source of water but no dumps.

I do a lot of remote camping and have learned to conserve water. When water and dumps are not available, I get by on about 3 gallons of water a day. That includes a shower, drinking, and washing dishes. Each takes about 1 gallon per day. My gray tank is 15 gallons and I generate about 2 gallons per day. If I have ready access to water, I might back off and use a bit more but I am so used to getting by with little, I still only "waste" another gallon or so a day usually on a longer shower.

I take a couple of other steps in dealing with gray water. First I have a fine mesh screen on the sink drain to minimize food particles in the gray water. Second, I frequently add a small amount of bleach to the waste tank.

With 2-3 gallons of relatively clean gray water a day. Keeping up with emptying the tank is pretty easy. I usually empty the tank before it is half full. My kitchen trash container is a 5 gallon bucket which used to hold kitty litter. It is easy to make a couple of trips with 3-4 gallons in the bucket. Finding a place to dump those relatively small amounts if rarely an issue. Many campgrounds have an area designated for tent campers to dump their waste. If not, absolute worst case, I might need to dump in the bushes somewhere. I try to avoid doing that anywhere near where people actually walk or camp. I suppose dumping in a toilet or outhouse is an option but I usually try to avoid adding the waste volume. Another option is to ask the campground host where you should dump "dishwater".

[naturist]

Maybe ten years ago we frequented a private campground that had no sewer hookups, but a lot of seasonal campers. One small wing-like cluster of seasonal campsites suddenly went vacant, so I asked the campground owner what happened to them.

He had caught them dumping grey water on the ground behind their sites. In a ravine with a small stream that fed directly into the camp fishing lake. Which they had polluted to the extent it was no longer safe to keep your catch. So much for the stocking done earlier in the season.

Of course, he kicked them out of the campground and closed that part of the loop to other campers.

[dieseltruckdriv]

When we had our first TC, we used use a bucket under the drain since there was no tank. This water would get flung into the tall grass or bushes away from the campsites. We also used paper plates, and food waste never went in to the sink drain. That came from our year's of tenting before the TC. The funny thing is, we still carry over those habits. Food waste doesn't go in the drain, and we still use paper plates because who wants to spend the time doing dishes.

[SDcampowneroper]

I got called out to a PUP site years ago because of ants. When I got there with insecticide, I politely told the lady the ants are just doing their job, cleaning up the corn and food debris from the dishwater you dumped there.
I saw them carrying their dishes to our wash sinks after that.

[mobeewan]

When I tent camp or used my pop up, I always dumped my dish pan in the bushes near by.

[Grit_dog]

But d3500ram, you ARE actually trolling by re-opening this topic. Good news is you got several fish on who somehow feel it’s worthy of posting how they handle their dishwater, lol.

That said, I see why the rule, or most all rules are put in place. Similar to this one, the “rule” is to encompass the least common denominators on the lower end of the IQ scale who aren’t intelligent enough or thoughtful enough to be able to lighten the load of some gray water, without creating a mess similar to Dedmiston’s experience.

[JRscooby]

The container I use to capture dish water holds about 7 gallons. We never used paper plates, but will sometimes cook in foil packs. Thru over 15 years of use, the only weekends I fill that jug is Thanksgiving. Cleaning a dozen DOs, I use some water.

[p220sigman]

Our Pup drains the sink out of a fitting on the side. I added a tee to create an air break with a piece of pipe going down to a 5 gallon jerry can. When it is full, I either dump it in sewer inlet (we mostly camp where there are full-hookups) or the toilet of the bath house if there are no hook-ups/dump station. Like others, we use mostly disposable items and for a normal weekend camping trip, only have to dump at the end of the weekend. Most of our gray water is from washing hands.

[time2roll]

When we had a pop up trailer we used a regular tote to pull behind the truck to the dump station. The tote fit into the pop up doorway if there was no dump station. Was never dumped on the ground.

[dedmiston]

ReneeG wrote:
AND this is why there are regulations on not dumping waste water. Had they responsibly adhered to rules and respect for the environment, we all would probably not be talking about this.

Amen to that.

I put this in the same category as running the gen all night. It's a symptom of people only thinking about themselves.

[ReneeG]

dedmiston wrote:
Here's an example from my personal experience.

This happened at one of our favorite spots out in the desert. It's wide open BLM land, but the camping spots are limited because it's only practical to camp where the brush has already been beaten down over the years and there's already a ring of rocks for the fire.

We pulled up to our favorite spot where we had told the group to meet us. I picked that spot because of the location and size. In that area, it's an unwritten rule that groups should pick a spot that fits the size of the group, so that you don't have a solo camper in a space that would fit twenty rigs. (We also don't "share" spots. We try to keep at least a football field length away from each other so that dust, kids, dogs, generator noise, music, etc. doesn't bother anyone else.)

So I pulled up to our agreed-upon spot and started to unhitch, but the campers who left that morning and dumped their gray tank right there in camp. There was a huge puddle that wrecked that area, and it was full of food particles (bits of salad, pasta, etc.) because the dumpers didn't know how to do dishes in an RV. The smell was horrendous and there were flies everywhere.

We had to pick a different spot and then drive out to the highway to contact everyone in our group and tell them the new location.

All this, just because the jerkwad before us wanted to shed a few pounds for his drive home.

AND this is why there are regulations on not dumping waste water. Had they responsibly adhered to rules and respect for the environment, we all would probably not be talking about this.