Not a good deal to recycle greywater for him if you crunch the numbers. 
I guess if you wanted to be more water efficient in the home, it makes more sense to just buy a new water efficient washing machine, use an on/off switch on the shower head, and get one of those half flush toilets for urine flushes only.
Wow, thanks for this. I suppose it helps save clean water for other things, but that’s pretty costly.FWIW, I just watched a YouTube video where a guy in San Diego (2021) had a greywater collection system installed at his house to collect the laundry and shower water. His system cost him over $2000 to install, and he figured out that amounts to $0.48 per gallon for year 1. Assuming his system lasts 10 years, he calculated his cost of greywater recycling to be $0.048 per gallon. The bad/good news is that he only pays $0.006 per gallon for fresh water. So, for him, even after 10 years, it is still costing 8X as much for using his recycled water than if he just used fresh water from the tap!
Of course, his disclaimer was that you could save money by doing all the labor yourself, and your water usage and price you pay per gallon of fresh water may differ. Therefore, your calculations might be more favorable. As in most cases, he was trying to convince himself that he was saving the planet and therefore paying 8X the cost of fresh water over 10 years was worth it to him.
Oh, he also said that you cannot recycle dishwater because of the oils, grease, and butters in the wash. For the shower and laundry water that you can save, you need to get the eco-friendly soaps that cost a premium. That was not calculated into his cost numbers per gallon of recycled water.
I’m using soap nuts in my kitchen so I can reuse that water.
From what I understand, it's the oil, grease and butter in the dishwashing water that you don't want to dump out on your plants. Even if you used soap that was biocompatible, it's the stuff you wash off the plates and frying pans that are probably not good for reuse. That would require some kind of filtration system, increasing the cost, of a greywater recycling system.
Having said that, I remember growing up in the summers at my grandparent's lake cabin without electricity or running water. Grandma would toss all the dishwater outside into the tall grass and we never thought anything bad about it.
That might attract raccoons and such also; part of the reason not to put it in the compost either. But it isn't too far fetched to put very little of it down the drain once you start changing habits. We don't have a grey water system (other than throwing some from the kitchen out in the woods) but fats and oils aren't good for the drain system either.
Yup, should’ve mentioned it depends on what I’m washing.
Very true. I hand wash light duty things like pans after I steam veggies, my kitchen knives, etc. Anything greasy gets scraped and goes in the dishwasher. After cooking I drain as much grease/fat as possible, scraping with a spatula helps, into an old coffee can and put it in the trash. If it’s a fat that hardens at room temp I let it sit overnight, then it goes in the trash, no container. I haven’t ever put anything like that down the drain.
