Grey Water will be the ...

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Grey Water will be the forthcoming global generation's water banking enterprise. Fresh potable water is rapidly becoming the highest priced and sought after global commodity - WE ARE RUNNING OUT OF USABLE QUALITY WATER !!! Grey Water should be used for all secondary water uses; however; untreated grey water exponentially raises the "risk factor" pursuant to intended application. My humble advisement is that -"it is better to be safe than sorry" !  All used water should be treated at the tertiary level for production of Gray Water !!! Without careful chemical characterization of the constituency and concentrations in the target "Grey Water"; using the recycled water; untreated; could prove highly risky, even for gardens, etc. ! In today's polluted planet situation; we never know exactly what is in our water without decisive analytical screening; any other use protocol would be a great "gamble" with Public Health, Welfare, Safety, and the Environment; even for agricultural purpose. We do not now live in the same planetary state as when water was "safe" to readily use untested; we have collectively compromised  our  global water quality and must carefully analyze every drop before use.  Hopefully; in the not too distant future we may restore our planet's air, earth, and water to health !!!

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Good points, use of all grey water systems increases risks. We do not know what all of the pollutants ARE in a given grey water, so how can we be sure we have adequately cleaned the water for appropriate use. Extensive experimental sampling, analysis, and assessment of toxicologic risk is essential, yet would still likely not recognize/remove all toxicants. Utmost testing, with scientific integrity, will be essential, and that is a tall order since it would probably be prohibitively expensive. We have created more than 85K largely new chemicals with which to contaminate water with by our uses, many of these have toxic effects, especially at chronic low dose accumulative levels that can be minute.We DO NOT, historically, do sufficient pollution assessment due to cost and difficulty of analysis.

Not testing adequately is risky, currently not even possible, and funding to try to do due diligent science always gets short-changed. So, it comes down to 'best management practices' which are NOT best available practices at the scientific level. It seems like we should keep in mind: how much risk to our two year old child are we willing to risk for any given use of grey water?

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