Helping Meet State Water Goals, One Laundry Load at a Time

摘要

ON SEPTEMBER 10, 2020, CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS FROM Golden, Colorado, voted unanimously to adopt a graywater ordinance, becoming just the fourth community in Colorado to do so. Unsurprisingly, the vote attracted little fanfare. The ordinance simply permits homeowners to install what is known as a laundry-to-landscape (L2L) system. Once installed, L2L systems divert effluent from washing machines through a ball valve to the outdoors, where it can supplement water demands for trees, shrubs, bushes, and other non-edible landscapes during the summer irrigation months. These systems are relatively simple, cheap, and easy to install and maintain, but compared with other conservation efforts in and around the home they do not save as much water.