At times in my life I've been lucky enough to live in a home where there were both a garden And a food disposallin the kitchen sink. I've always wished I could install a diverter so that all my ground up potato peels and eggshells could flow, along with the water, into the garden, I don't know if so much water would drown a compost heap? However, in the hot summer months, when we are experiencing near drought conditions, I would feel so much better about indulging my laziness with that damn disposall, if I knew I was doing my garden some good. Alas, no landlord has yet taken me seriously!-- DragonMother, Dec 20 2000 Arizona water efficiency ideas http://ag.arizona.e...arroyo/071rain.htmlInterested in code changes; what systems will most likely fail under standard (poor) maintenance, for instance. Nifty idea for plumbing rinse water from one laundry cycle to be washwater for the next. [hello_c, Dec 20 2000] Living Machines http://www.livingma....com/aboutmachines/Obviously water-reuse happens in nature; the LM is pretty much a wet garden chosen to clean water (and even sludge) quickly. Usually in a greenhouse, in cold climates. Many are installed & working. [hello_c, Dec 20 2000] Anaheim Manufacturing http://www.wasteking.com/The company [fogfreak] is talking about. [jutta, Dec 20 2000] Maybe you could pump gunky water out to the compost heap and pass it through some filters there to deposit the larger/smellier particles where they belong before sending the rest out to water the lawn. Filter-cleaning might replace compost-hauling as a chore, but you might be able to make some local use out of the waste kitchen water (if you didn't mind the expense and hassle).-- Monkfish, Dec 20 2000 People do plumb this with kitchen and sink and laundry graywater. (You'd want diverters in case you need to use one of those drains for something dangerous to your health or that of your wetland.) It's even legal, sometimes - see the Arizona link.
The niftiest ideas don't just dump everything into a standard compost heap, which probably would drown it, but run the graywater through a consciously planted wetland. (See Living Machine link.)
Until then... if you're really interested - you could probably do a bit of guerilla replumbing and let the disposall empty into a bucket under the sink. It depends on how absent-minded you are when washing dishes, of course; easy to overflow. I'd find it easier to have a bucket of water to rinse the dishes in, and then dump the bucket onto the compost heap (which, esp. if I've planted vines around it, won't mind the extra water).-- hello_c, Dec 20 2000 I'm in the process of re-routing our kitchen sink outlet into a couple of big planters. The kitchen waste still goes in a compost bin though.-- david_scothern, Jul 02 2009 random, halfbakery