eli5 Is there a reason the waste water like from showers can’t be filtered through pipes and used for toilet water?

Question

eli5 Is there a reason the waste water like from showers can’t be filtered through pipes and used for toilet water?

In: 797

Answer 1

I’ve seen it done but it was just the sinks and shower water captured and used for irrigation of certain plant beds. You could plumb it into the toilet if you wanted but adds complexity to the plumbing. My house is self contained but we have plenty of rain and store 70,000 litres of rain water captured from the roof and we process our sewerage through a textile media septic system which then irrigates a planted area, it can handle up to 1200 litres of sewerage per day, but we would never make that much. About every 7 years the system needs desludging by a truck that pumps it out. Environmentally it’s great but obviously wouldn’t be practical for lots of houses in a city area.