Renewable Gray Water - Sustainable Investments

The long-term market for water infrastructure upgrade and rehabilitation remains strong with capital expenditure expected to grow from $25.2 billion in 2009 to $49.7 billion in 2016.

For example, renewable “Gray Water” — the stuff that drains from bathtubs, sinks and clothes washers — generates 40 gallons of water per person per day in the U.S. that could be recycled in the landscape or reused to flush toilets in addition to large volume commercial industrial needs.

Today, only a relatively small portion, just over 10% of the 98 million or so U.S. households, are currently reusing gray water. Although I found on my recent visit to California’s wild horse ranch sanctuary Return To Freedom that in Santa Barbara County gray water recycling has grown to over 17%, becoming an important sector. Below for example, note the savings if the following terms existed:

click to enlarge

Gray water can be defined as any wash water that has been used in the home, except water from toilets. Dish, shower, sink, and laundry water comprise 50-80% of residential "waste" water. This may be reused for other purposes, especially landscape irrigation.

What if you could shower and water the lawn at the same time. Maybe wash your clothes and irrigate the garden? If the average household recycled its gray water, it would cut total use by 25 percent, a boon for innovative states such as Oregon and California that often struggle to keep pace with growing demand.

The nationwide regions that have the greatest concentration of gray water reuse are the Southwest and Western areas of the country. Gray water reusers tend to own a single-family house, have households of 4 or less and do not use a mechanical water softener. High volume users are more likely to have private wells and septic tanks.

Less than a third of gray water reusers own a handling or treatment system for gray water. 93% of reusers are not treating the gray water before disposal. Over 70% of gray water reusers collect gray water before it enters the household plumbing system.

Is grey water reuse safe?

Yes. There are nine million grey water systems in the US with about 22 million users. In the past 60 years, there has been one billion system user-years of exposure, yet there has not been one documented case of grey water transmitted illness.

We see a growing trend with states such as; New Mexico, California, Oregon, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Arizona and a handful of other states are extending laws that promote gray water recycling to help conserve, but the practice is out of reach for most households in Oregon.

For example, the state of Oregon working with ReCode, an environmental group took its first steps recently during a legislative session to make gray water more accessible including efforts for a full-blown sewage treatment plant with a new law designed to simplify permits and expand the definition of gray water and its uses.

The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality also recently launched a gray water Web site and will soon lead an advisory committee to create gray water rules.

The new laws being implemented often define gray water as household water that isn't contaminated by toxins or human waste, which means toilets and washing machines with cloth diapers are off limits.

The gray water isn't drinkable, but it's safe to recycle for other uses. But Oregon residents can't divert their gray water just yet. It could take some time to fully establish widespread regulations and the permit process as outlined by the DEQ's Biosolids and Water Reuse Program.

Gray Water Stock Investments

Investments into this consumer and commercial growth sector includes companies such as Solvay Group (SOLB.BB), Uhde a division of ThyssenKrupp Group, and Germany giant BAYER AG’s (BYERF.PK) Technology Group among leaders in graywater , waste water, microfilteration, ultrafilteration, osmosis, and chlorine electrolysis treatments. Note, the BAYER Q1 2009, sales chart below:

Among global leaders in gray water , waste water, microfilteration, ultrafilteration, osmosis, and chlorine electrolysis treatments is General Electric (GE) Water & Process Technology with hundreds of millions in capital developments, particularly within China and Singapore most notably. Interestingly, other participants are Insituform (INSU), Veolia Environnement SA (VE) and Fluor (FLR) for being best positioned in water infrastructure.

Why Does Grey water Matter?

Viewed narrowly, grey water systems don’t look that important. However, upon closer examination including for example; the recent California Drought Report, June 2009 and World Health Organizations Gray Water Report, 2009, perhaps the efficiencies of “gray water usage” will continue to emerge as a significant sustainable growth sector.

For example, a low flow shower head can save water with less effort. A septic system can treat grey water almost as well. But when you look at the whole picture—how everything connects—the keystone importance of grey water is revealed.

1. Ecological systems' design is about context, and integration between systems. The entirety of integrated, ecological design can be reduced to one sentence: do what's appropriate for the context.
2. Ecological systems—rainwater harvesting, runoff management, passive solar, composting toilets, edible landscaping—all of these are more context sensitive than their counterparts in conventional practice; that's most of what makes them more ecological.
3. Grey water systems are more context sensitive than any other manmade ecological system, and more connected to more other cost efficient systems.
4. Get the grey water just right, and you’ve got the whole package right—and that matters.
5. Many people and organizations instinctively recognize that grey water is the ideal test case for the transition to a new way of regulating and building that is appropriate to a post-peak resource, mature civilization.

Expect Growth

Capital expenditure on crucial water infrastructure projects in the U.S. has been cut back by 12.9% over the past few months due to restraints on borrowing, shrinking tax bases related to population issues and a drop in capital contributions from property developers.

However, the long-term market for water infrastructure upgrade and rehabilitation remains strong with capital expenditure expected to grow from $25.2 billion in 2009 to $49.7 billion in 2016. The largest area of investment will be in sewer network rehabilitation, which will attract a total of $46 billion over the next eight years. The fastest-growing market will be seawater desalination, which represented a comparatively small capital expenditure of $130 million in 2008 but, driven by major water shortages, will grow to more than $1 billion by 2015.

Review more details about the evolving water challenge worldwide in my recent article; "BLUE GOLD - Clean Water The Ultimate Commodity". To learn more about the evolving regional “gray water laws” visit the links below:

• Arizona grey water law - the model to emulate
• Uniform Plumbing Code
• International Plumbing Code
• California
• Malibu, California
• Connecticut
• Colorado
• Montana
• Nevada
• New Jersey
• New Mexico
• New York
• Massachusetts
• Oregon
• Texas
• Utah
• Washington
• Vermont
• Australia
• Jordan

Disclosure: The author holds diverse interests in several sustainable niche sectors.

Comments

[Mad Hedge F...:]

Nice theme. If you think that the upcoming energy shortage is going to be bad, it will pale in comparison to the next water crisis, so investment in fresh water infrastructure is going to be a recurring long term investment theme. (See my earlier efforts to get you into the water space at www.madhedgefundtrader...). One theory about the endless wars in the Middle East since 1918 is that they have really been over water rights. Although Earth is often referred to as the water planet, only 2.5% is fresh, and three quarters of that is locked up in ice at the North and South poles. In places like China, with a quarter of the world’s population, up to 90% of the fresh water is already polluted, some irretrievably so. Some 18% of the world population lacks access to potable water, and demand is expected to rise by 40% in the next 20 years. Aquifers in the US, which took nature millennia to create, are approaching exhaustion. While membrane osmosis technologies exist to convert sea water into fresh, they use ten times more energy than current treatment processes, a real problem if you don’t have any, and will easily double the end cost to consumers. While it may take 16 pounds of grain to produce a pound of beef, it takes a staggering 2,416 gallons of water to do the same. The UN says that $11 billion a year is needed for water infrastructure investment, and $15 billion of the US stimulus package will be similarly spent. It says a lot that when I went to the UC Berkeley School of Engineering to research this piece, most of the experts in the field had already been retained by major hedge funds! At the top of the shopping list to participate here should be the Claymore S&P Global Water Index ETF (CGW), which has appreciated by 32% since I first brought it up. You can also visit the PowerShares Water Resource Portfolio (PHO), the First Trust ISE Water Index Fund (FIW), or the individual stocks Veolia Environment (VE), Tetra-Tech (TTEK), and Pentair (PNR). Who has the world’s greatest per capita water resources? Siberia, which could become a major exporter to China in the decades to come.

Jul 20 10:59 AM

[TinyTim:]

Good article on a subject not well publicized. Living in the Sonoran Desert, I'm more sensitive to water issues.

Regarding clean water, many people claim the treated effluent from water reclamation / sewage treatment plants is potable, when in fact it is "light gray" and only has to meet the requirements for an NPDES permit to be discharged into a lake/stream/river. It can be used for any application that gray water is suitable for. In fact, a ski area in N. AZ just won a court case to use it for snow making. A major portion of the treated effluent from Phoenix is pumped to the country's largest nuclear power plant for coolant.
I'm interested in the technology to bring this effluent to a true potable class so that it could be continuously recycled.

Jul 20 10:41 PM

[Ruchira Shah:]

What will it take to make our Mother Earth cleaner and prettier?

A responsible generation for sure.

Few days back pages of Guardian spoke about UK saying NO to Plastic. I hope to start seeing some coverage on world saying YES to Grey Water.

Jul 27 07:09 AM

[Garrett Bea...:]

Wow, thanks for the well reseached tome on gray water in the US. Unfortunately homebuilders and many metro water districts are not the most forward thinking folks... seems like the DIYers will lead the charge for quite a while.

Oct 09 12:57 PM