think about it, you will not have enough grey water to properly water a lawn. maybe some beds or shrubs, but not a whole lawn. if you create enough GW for a lawn, then you need to seriously rethink your water use. you need roughly 1" of water per week for proper watering. how big is your lawn? an avg sized lawn would require a couple thousand gallons or more per week. it is more environmentally friendly to not water at all, plant native grasses and let them do what they do. i ain't worried about it. by the time the little but of detergent we use is mixed with a few hundred gallons of water it is perfectly safe. you probably absorb more thru your skin when showering than is contained in the water.

Just becaue you don't think it's "salty" doesn't mean it isn't. Depends on what kind of soap. A "detergent" type body wash thingie may be less of a problem, but "soap" is made by combining alkali with fat. Basic soap may well have sodium hydroxide (lye), or it could be potassium hydroxide, which would be less of a problem. If the soap you use doesn't have an ingredients label, call the manufacturer if you're that interested. They may not be willing to tell you exactly what's in it, but if you push hard enough and are specific, they might be willing to tell you if there are "sodium-based substances" in it. (If you're really lucky, you might get a real answer to the basic question whether they have any idea if it's OK to use gray water from their product on "salt sensitive" plants - orchids are far from the only plants that have a serious problem with sodium.) Other than that, as long as it's not mostly what you're using for watering, I think it'd probably be OK for the "tougher" orchids like Oncidiums, Cattleyas, Phalenopsis, Vandas, etc. More "tds-sensitive" plants like your Zygopetalum, Paphs, Phrags, Miltonia/Miltoniopsis, let alone many of the Pleurothallids, might take it less in stride.... Barring further research, try it on one of your Catts for a month or so - it's unlikely to harm any of the above-mentioned tougher plants, but should give you an idea of what you're working with. I would definitely not rely on it as a primary source of water, and wouldn't use it to mix up fertilizer - without a lot more information, you'd have no idea what fert compounds it might bond with either rendering them less available or conceivably, rendering them "harmful" in the sense of causing a problem - in any of several ways - if not necessarily immediate poor plant health.

It's usually recommended you alternate 2x gray water to 1x fresh water, due to salt build-up using the gray water. Otherwise, you can put in a DIY filtering system. Here are some websites with info you can use for research: Greywater sites: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reclaimed_water http://www.greywaterguerrillas.com/ http://www.greywater.com/ http://www.ecologycenter.org/ecohouse/greywater.html The best solution is rainwater harvesting from your roof, assuming you live in a state where this is allowed (believe it or not, in some states, such as Utah, it is NOT). However, you need room to place (and hide) a fairly large cistern on a concrete pad, about 9-12' around and 5-6' high, depending on storage size needed. In an average rainy season you can harvest 15,000 - 18,000 gallons of water for storage. Note that there may be additional costs to install new gutters for easy feeding into the cistern. For some houses it's easy; for others it's not, so an individual analysis is needed for the appropriate solution to each unique house/site. Rainwater harvesting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainwater_harvesting Rainwater storage tanks: http://www.plastic-mart.com/class.php?cat=9 http://www.ntotank.com/?gclid=CMKatN68vpMCFRGiiQodI1wbfQ http://www.loomistank.com/ This is all info I got from a local vendor who is installing a filtered gray water system for us in the next month. Hope this helps others!

Hi coralb - I have never done it but did do a fair amount of reading about it a couple of years back during a drought here. (Kind of miss that year now as this year is the other extreme. ;) But I did learn from the reading that it can be done with some limitations (such as only on established plants and not on root crops) and I bookmarked some readings then I'll gladly pass on in case they may be of help. Recycling Gray Water for Home Gardening Using Household Gray Water Keep Plants Green with Gray Water If you Google the topic you'll find lots of additional info. Good luck on your project. ;) Dave