Confused about grey water disposal

[xstaticgibbo]

Hi I'm flying solo from the UK and catching the Burner Express into BRC and out again. A lot of the advice on here about grey water disposal is for large camps using outside companies and I'm confused about what my options are as a loner with a tent catching the bus! Can anyone help? Thanks!

[some seeing eye]

Grey water is what would go down the drain from showering or washing kitchen dishes. Very few solo Burner Express participants will have. Use wipes/ spray mister to shower and dry-pack out or burn wipes. Eat food that does not need washing dishes. Wipes for dishes/forks/chopsticks. Spray bottle, minimal liquid soap wipes for face and hands.

[Savannah]

Wipes for dishes/forks/chopsticks.

You must've had good standard practices, but I skip straight to paper plates, compostable dishes, etc. I don't trust myself to wash dishes properly in that environment (or trust wipes). In an RV or trailer, I'd certainly do it.

( Poorly washed dishes can lead to gastrointestinal distress, xstaticgibbo. )

[xstaticgibbo]

Thanks for your replies, very useful and yep I've had lots of practise with wet wipe showers!

[xstaticgibbo]

I'll probably buy ice though, what about the water from that?

[MikeVDS]

Melted ice is clean water. Clean, potable water, can be spread out evenly over the streets (do not poor it in one place and make a mud puddle)

[VultureChow]

Ice melt is too good to throw away. Get some two gallon ziploc baggies. Put the ice in there. When it's melted, take it out and drink it. Or bathe with it. Whatever.


But if you have to, ice melt is perfectly safe to gently sprinkle around your camp to keep the dust down.

[trilobyte]

What they all said. Bottom line is that EVERYONE is responsible for removing their waste water/gray water from the playa. Leave no trace, pack it in, pack it out. The bigger camps have the 'economies of scale' to both be able to afford the fairly costly process of booking graywater removal services in advance... and having too much to be able to manage it themselves.

For smaller camps and solo campers, the most important thing you can do is minimize your graywater use to begin with. Look for information about dry kitchens and evap ponds and evapotrons to significantly reduce the amount of waste water you've got to take back home with you. Good luck!

[EspressoDude]

for a loner or small camp: Bring a funnel. You brought the water to the event in containers like plastic bottles, gallon jugs, 5 gallon totes, etc. Be very careful about how much grey water you create. Re-use water. And you have all the containers you brought to the playa to take your grey water away. Keep ice melt separate, shower or water the streets with it.

[robrob]

our best move was switching over to the round, one gallon jugs of water (WITH SCREW ON TOPS) for showers; good "portion control" and you can take it out the same way you brought it in.

(instead of a funnel, we have a cheap little bilge pump and a short length of tubing to get the water out of our collection basin and back into the bottles)

[Gunslinger]

It's pretty simple for a solo guy, you won't use much water at all! I had quite a bit of success with a small evap pond which I'd attached an A-frame sawhorse like structure near the deep end with a couple of towels dipping into the water to soak it up. I'd shower early AM (COLD water, but hey, that shit'll wake you up in the morning) and by mid-day the water had evaporated. Sun and wind did wonders. If some rogue wankers had come by and used my shower when I wasn't there (yes it happened, and almost daily too) I'd dunk the towels in the pond, stretch them over the sawhorse and bind them down with paracord. Dry by nighttime, no fail. Let mother nature work for you out there, it's painless.

[pink]

Soak your feet in cooler water! Heaven.

[unjonharley]

Right after use.. I wipe all food surfaces with face tissue to remove any food stuff. This means very little to clean with..

[Molotov]

A question for the masses. Given the rain on Monday, the blowing dust, the relatively mild temperatures, and a lack of real intense solar heating, how did those of you with evap pools make out? Did they perform as desired, or were you stuck with 50+ gallons of muddy stinky goo to deal with before Exodus?

[TomServo]

A question for the masses. Given the rain on Monday, the blowing dust, the relatively mild temperatures, and a lack of real intense solar heating, how did those of you with evap pools make out? Did they perform as desired, or were you stuck with 50+ gallons of muddy stinky goo to deal with before Exodus?

Evap ponds suck in the best of conditions. I boiled mine last year in a burn barrel..which worked pretty good, but started too late and had that damned fire going day and night

[^Rhino!]

Pur Camp has an Evapotron...the Gray-B-Gon water disposal method developed by Ember....it gets rid of 19 gallons of gray water/ day and has a 2' by 3' footprint. It worked GREAT.

[AfricanFire]

Astral Headwash got rid of about 500 gallons of grey water (plus the rain) from our evap ponds. No problems at all.

[spacetime]

I saw a propeller powered grew water evaporator demonstration near center. Anyone have pics of this or know how successful those are?

[^Rhino!]

I saw a propeller powered grew water evaporator demonstration near center. Anyone have pics of this or know how successful those are?

That was ours. 19 gallons/day.

[spacetime]

I saw a propeller powered grew water evaporator demonstration near center. Anyone have pics of this or know how successful those are?

That was ours. 19 gallons/day.

Nice work! I read your little sign and was impressed. Do you have plans online?

[spacetime]

Just did a flippin' search and found this lovely site:
http://www.evapotrons.info/home/cg-intro-page

This is similar to what I saw!


I would totally dig doing a workshop to build one of these in January or February in the Bay area. Anyone interested in planning something like this?

[^Rhino!]

That's the one. If you check the 'contact' information on the site, it's Ember. You can contact him at [email protected]. He's good people, and I have a lot of respect for him.

[666isMONEY]

i used about two quarts to wash myself & hair (very little soap) everyday then kept it in the dishpan under the minivan for washing my feet
when time to wash hair again, i poured the water around the entrance to the van
no dishes to wash (ate out of cans) . . . don't throw dishwater on the playa because it attracts/breeds flies.
used less than three gallons this year because i didn't use cream-rinse, used spray-in conditioner.

[666isMONEY]

IMG_5508 (480x640).jpg

[spacetime]

Yay, tasty info. Thank you.

What's the camp behavior like with one of these?

For example, are people going over to it and brushing their teeth around this? Do they keep little grey water containers and then pour them into the nylon (?) strainer bucket?

[^Rhino!]

Yay, tasty info. Thank you.

What's the camp behavior like with one of these?

For example, are people going over to it and brushing their teeth around this? Do they keep little grey water containers and then pour them into the nylon (?) strainer bucket?

We've never gotten into any arguments about grey water, in case you're asking.

Something you should know, though, you need to follow the burningman Survival Guide and bring an empty 5-gallon bucket for every member of your camp. Have a couple extras around, too. Make sure they have covers, and that individuals mark their own container with a Sharpie. Decorate them with art if you want! The extras can be used to collect the gray water from multiple buckets in a day, and then you pour the extra's contents into the nylon strainer.

The whole point is that you have to work together. Apply the Burningman principle of COMMUNITY, and things will go smooth when the community takes the responsibility for itself,

[spacetime]

We've never gotten into any arguments about grey water, in case you're asking.

It wasn't. Is this a common camp issue? My experience is only solo.

Something you should know, though, you need to follow the burningman Survival Guide and bring an empty 5-gallon bucket for every member...The whole point is that you have to work together.

Thanks for this reminder. It seems like there can be a fair amount of BM-specific nuance to camp setup that allows natural community behavior among members.

[^Rhino!]

It's possible to get into disagreements about grey water, but not all that common in my experience. I'm just saying what can happen often does happen.

Thanks for your posts. Inquisitive and enlightening! Many blessings to you!

[pretty_monster]

...I boiled mine last year in a burn barrel..

never... but... how...

ohmygod this is fucking brilliant. how have i never thought of this??? you've totally transformed my burn.

[Just_Joe]

...I boiled mine last year in a burn barrel..

never... but... how...

ohmygod this is fucking brilliant. how have i never thought of this??? you've totally transformed my burn.

Someone else posted that this was a pretty inefficient way of evaping. I saw a reference to 5% an hour. That's a lot of flame- a lot of wood (weight and volume).
Conditions have to be right (no or low wind), precautions taken against spilling onto playa (or flame), and the fire has to be tended.
If the 5% thing is correct, you're going to boil off a quart of water an hour from a 5 gallon pot.

Thanks, but I'll pay the USS guys $50 to drain the fifty gallons from my barrel towards the end of the week.