by Michael Hutchinson
I don’t remember why I was having a
blood sample taken but can still recall the moment when the nurse
dropped the tiny glass phial. There was only a very small amount in
it, but suddenly blood seemed to be spattered everywhere. I thought
I’d found myself in an out-take from a slasher movie.
What’s this to do with washing dishes
or permaculture? Well, nothing at all, really. Except that small
things are not to be under-estimated. Small things like washing
dishes.
Reduce, reuse, recycle
Thinking about this - and it’s not
something I’ve dwelt at length on, to be honest - the recycling
mantra springs to mind: ‘Reduce, reuse, recycle.’ This chimes
well with the three ethical principles of permaculture, in particular
Earth Care. And as I was to find out, dish washing can, depending on how you approach it, touch on five of the design principles as well (catch and store energy, obtain a yield, use and value renewable resources and services, produce no waste, use small and slow solutions).
It makes sense to start by considering
whether we need to wash the dishes at all. At my home we typically do
wash dishes three times a day: after breakfast; after lunch (if at
home); then again in the evening. We could do this less often but
it's to do with the lack of space in a very small kitchen where a few
dishes can look like a whole pile.
While I haven’t always saved water
all year round, I collect what I think of as run-off through spring,
summer and into the autumn: this is what comes out of the tap before
it's hot enough to use. Adding some rainwater collection to this has
meant that I’ve never had to resort to watering the garden by
deliberately using tap water.
My system for saving water is pretty
basic but works well; water is transferred from the kitchen basin to
a bucket outside the back door, and from there to water butts in the
garden. It takes a little effort, but isn't a big deal; I prefer
low-tech solutions anyway.
But often it's not really necessary to
wash some dishes at all. Or at least not that often. Could that plate
be reused if the crumbs are brushed off? Ditto the bread knife?
Some years ago I shared an office at
the university I worked at, with the writer Marina Lewcyka ; this was
before Marina became a best-selling author with her 'Tractors' novel.
Now I’d never done this myself, but perhaps it was her experience
of being a refugee as a child, or just that Ukrainians are less
wasteful, but Marina would reuse the same tea bag, leaving it in her
mug several times, until it expired through sheer exhaustion. We no
longer share an office since her writing career took off, but I
adopted Marina's approach to tea bags, although using the same one
three times is my record so far.
"If we had to carry water, we'd be a lot more careful about how we used it."
When I was born in a small terrace of
four cottages, my family had only just had mains water supplied.
Before that water was pumped from the well at an end cottage and
carried round to the house. So, in a sense, it's more difficult now,
because all we have to do is turn the tap and out it comes. If we had
to carry water, even across a relatively short distance, we'd be a
lot more careful about how we used it.
While I’m only concerned with
dish washing here, you can - as you already know - reduce the water
flowing from your property into the municipal mains quite seriously
by adopting a few other methods. It’s relatively easy to divert
rain water from down pipes directly into water butts. And soft
permeable surfaces in our gardens and around our homes help water
soak into the ground rather than running off into the drains.
This run-off is a significant amount
and not helped by the loss of gardens and lawns to form hard standing
for cars. It's quite possible to do this with permeable materials but
despite local authority guidelines, too many are still being made
from concrete and other impermeable materials. A survey by the
Wildlife Trust in 2011 found that gardens in London were being
converted to hard surfaces at the rate of 3,000 ha (7,410 acres) a
year. That's the equivalent of two and a half Hyde Parks.
Of course, in permaculture we know
about keeping energy - and water is one form - on our sites for as
long as possible. But what I didn’t know, until I went to a talk on
water gardening last summer given by Dr Nigel Dunnett of Sheffield
University’s Landscape Department, was that if you do this
seriously, it’s possible to get a reduction in your water charge
bill.
I've somewhat blurred reducing and
reusing with my talk of tea bags; reusing something - a tea bag, a
plate - should lead to a reduction in the amount of water we use to
wash with anyway.
But when we have washed dishes, what
then?
Grey Water
Water left from washing dishes is
termed 'grey' water, and can be used to water garden plants. This
does hold traces of food, grease, etc., and the detergent used could
contain a wide range of ingredients, some of which can make plants
more likely to take up heavy metals, for example. Ecological
products, like Ecover, are better, but why not gather some soapwort
and make your own: this is not something I have done yet, but plan to
try later this year.
Grey water is probably best filtered
(sieved?) to remove any larger traces of food and then left for a
day, or so to allow micro-organisms to break down some of the
ingredients and to let any scraps that passed the filtering process
to settle to the bottom. A rough rule of thumb is to only leave this
water for one day in summer, perhaps two in spring and autumn. The
water can poured onto the soil around garden plants: organisms in the
soil continue to breakdown any ingredients further still.
Given the right site, you can always
create a reed bed that filters the grey water before it reaches the
garden. These are typically made of coarse gravel, with smaller 'pea'
gravel above, and then a layer of sand on top of that. It's then
planted with reeds, and will take at least a year before it works
properly; the actual work is done by bacteria living on the roots of
the reeds. Water comes in at the top, via a sieve or filter, to
remove unwanted material, and then out and into the garden.
Reed beds can be fairly small - old
baths have been used to hold them - and a surface area of one square
metre per person is a rough guide. Connecting the outflow from your
kitchen sink to one of these recycles the water and takes the effort
out of the whole process: unfortunately, our neighbours have access
between our house and garden, and so a pipe into the garden isn't
feasible.
"Missing out one of these daily washings would save 6.8 litres"
In a spirit of scientific enquiry, I
decided to measure my dish washing water use. Our boiler is an older
type and it takes a few minutes before the water coming through the
tap is hot enough for washing dishes. This amounted to six pints, or
3.4 litres. Using my dish washing average of three times a day gives
a daily run-off of 10.2 litres; over the course of a year that’s a
significant 3,723 litres.
Being reasonably careful with water
use, I only use about six pints (3.4 litres) of hot water for actual
washing; this is based on dishes for two from supper and breakfast
(two bowls, four mugs, two cups and saucers, two plates, plus odds
and ends). Missing out one of these daily washings would save 6.8
litres (the cold run-off and hot water) per day, adding up to a not
insignificant 2,482 litres per year.
So whether you want to think about it
as reusing or recycling, there are practical, beneficial outcomes to
dish washing in addition to sparkling plates and cutlery. The water
saved from even a simple, everyday activity such as this, can make a
difference. And you don't have to spill blood to do it.
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