: Grow a Garden With Greywater From Your Kitchen, Bathroom. Expert Shares How #IndiaNEWS #Lede Indukanth Ragade stops me mid-sentence when I ask about greywater treatment for garden plants. â€œThere

Grow a Garden With Greywater From Your Kitchen, Bathroom. Expert Shares How #IndiaNEWS #Lede
Indukanth Ragade stops me mid-sentence when I ask about greywater treatment for garden plants. â€œThere is no such concept,â€? he asserts, â€œThe greywater from your household need not be treated for watering your garden plants. â€?
The 82-year-old urban environmentalist from Chennai proceeds to provide a precise calculation to debunk the most common myth about greywater that the chemicals present in it can harm plants if applied directly.
For the uninitiated, greywater refers to the relatively cleaner wastewater generated from bathrooms, washing machines and kitchen appliances. It is also referred to as sullage.

Indukanth Ragade (Source: India Water Portal)
For your garden watered with greywater, Ragade advises growing any type of indigenous garden plants, especially the water-loving species like Canna indica, Ginger Lily, Heliconium, Cyperus, colocasia or banana. Â
In fact, the moderate amounts of phosphates present in detergent serve as a growth-enhancing fertiliser for the plants, which helps them develop thick foliage and blooms. Â These plants also help in naturally purifying the water to a great extent.
He cautions urban gardeners about ornamental and exotic plants with specific requirements of water, soil, and other resources that might not thrive well with greywater. Â
Bed of Canna indica nourished by greywater
Greywater Helps Plants Thrive
â€œYou make the calculation. In one month, an individual will use, letâ€™s say, a 100 gm toilet soap bar. Each day, if the person uses around 15 litres of water for bathing, the total water usage for the month will come to 450 litres for bathing. Considering this amount in grams, there will be far less than one gram of soap present in each litre of greywater from the washroom,â€? Ragade breaks it down step by step.

Since soap, detergents or other toiletries mostly contain organic components, especially if one is opting for sustainable toiletries, the greywater from the washroom of a domestic household can even be purer than rainwater, says Ragade.
Most of the chemicals added in toilet soap are organic compounds, like fatty acids, glycerol etc. , which are technically composed of Carbon, hydrogen and oxygen the basic elements in organic chemistry, he adds.
Heliconium
If anything, these organic extracts will only help the plants thrive, especially in areas with scarcity of water, where watering garden plants can often feel like a liability. Â
Your Garden can be a Natural Water Treatment Plant
In a conversation with The Better India, the former organic chemist explains how urban dwellers can easily reuse the greywater drained from their washrooms and kitchens to grow a beautiful garden patch in every home.