What to do with waste water from RO

I started another thread asking farmers what they did with waste water, I got 4 replies and hundreds of views... Made me think, what are growers really doing with the waste water?
When I first started growing, my waste water went to the sink, this my friends, is not very logical nor sustainable.

For me, organics is sustainability, although I know it's hard to be sustainable, there are ways in which we can contribute by becoming sustainable.

I'm going to give out some examples of what I do with my waste water, along with ideas and articles of what other people do with their waste water.

I have a stealth ro
and a hydrologic RO
both have a 2-1 ratio of clean to waste water.

I normally filll up a resiovor with RO water along with 25% waste water for minerals.

I revert my waste water to my garden.
I built small trenches that divert the excess water to all zones of the garden.
However, After awhile I started to realize that I can do so much more with waste water because I'm actually almost over flooding my garden.

So I made a small pond that our local birds can feed off of, I always fill it up once a week, birds seem to be very thankfully and look forward to it.

Another thing I do once a week is water down my compost piles so they can get nice and moist. (not too much!!)


my girlfriend thought of this idea, (because she does the dishes)
I always set aside a 5gallon bucket and my gf uses it too wash dishes, no need to use excess water from the sink.

Some other ideas.
-wash your dog/pets (chemical free)
-wash your car (no chemicals needed)
-fill up water bowl for pets
-fill up spa/pool

heard controversy behind re using water for pets or people consumption. Some say waste water can get contaminated with bacteria are parasites due to membrane and filter getting dirty, this may be true, but keep in mind, water plants "clean" by adding chlorine and other methods of cleaning water before its "safe to use", so wi that said, our water shouldn't have parasites or bad bacteria to begin with. Not sure tho, more research needs to be done so beware.


Those are just some of the things I'm currently doing with my waste water, I'm going to add more ideas down the road with some cool articles I looked up. Also some pics I have of my projects and ideas.
feel free to contribute and let us know what you do with your waste water.

Sustain, and keep it simple

My mum has so many plants in the garden

I just say "here take this" and tell her if its veg, flower or rooting feed/water

She dumps it on the correct part of the garden and if she`s not there I`ll just either aim for grass or a tree so I don`t chuck away most of my water unless it`s super cold and 3am and I need to dump something fast

But if I lose my plants the results of that are me being pissed off and potentially causing some other kind of trouble not to mention the possibility that I may have to buy weed and that is certainly not friendly to the environment lol

Foreverflyhi - glad to see someone posting something like this. Very conscious consideration of your waste. Currently, I have my RO draining through a small hose into my backyard, where I can have it do multiple things. I can position the hose so the runoff goes down into a somewhat marshy area...I'm thinking about planting blueberries in here but I'm worried the RO water will have too high of a pH for the acid-loving blueberries. Might have to do some soil amending. If the marsh is already marshy, I'll redirect the runoff into a small kiddy pool in my backyard which serves as a birdbath/dog bowl/water reservoir for my potted plants outside. If the kiddy pool is full, I'll fill up a big trashcan with the runoff and then find uses for it later. Either way, I refuse to waste my runoff. The runoff water side of the yard has 3x the grass/clover growth of the other side...this is no coincidence. I use the water in the kiddy pool/trashcans to water my outside potted plants/compost piles/cooking soil mixes.

I have never tried mixing 25% wastewater with RO to see what happens...is there any chlorine or chloramine in the wastewater?

Just a heads up, blueberries have a rather shallow root system and don't really like to have wet feet.

Hmm...I have some blueberries near my home in the PNW that are fed by a creek and the soil around them is always really wet, and they are jamming out. No signs of issues. I thought they like wet, acidic conditions? But maybe I am mistaken...

LOL, it took a while for me to figure out we were not talking about "run off" I was right there with ya until you made the gf do dishes with it.
I needed that. I did not realize there was that much waste with RO water systems.

mine goes into the sink. because its waste water.... I do have one of those RO back pressure things which supposedly drops the amount of waste but ive never measured it. If I was growing at home I would dump it in the yard but im in an office complex and storing 100's of gallons of water to do the dishes with just isnt going to fly. Every once in a while I think about the waste but its not the top of my list of things to be green about. I dont use PGRs or pesticides so I feel like I did my part for the hippies this week

A 2400 watts system uses approx 3 gallons of water/day so the waste is about 6 gallons per day. Assuming your public water comes from a river as polluted as mine, I would not advise using the waste water to add back calmag because you are adding back contaminants as well (herbicides, pesticides, fungicides, heavy metals, pharmaceuticals, ammonia). IMO better off to dissolve some dolomite lime with citric acid or use calmag+.

foreverflyhi said:

I started another thread asking farmers what they did with waste water, I got 4 replies and hundreds of views... Made me think, what are growers really doing with the waste water?
When I first started growing, my waste water went to the sink, this my friends, is not very logical nor sustainable.

For me, organics is sustainability, although I know it's hard to be sustainable, there are ways in which we can contribute by becoming sustainable.

I'm going to give out some examples of what I do with my waste water, along with ideas and articles of what other people do with their waste water.

I have a stealth ro
and a hydrologic RO
both have a 2-1 ratio of clean to waste water.

I normally filll up a resiovor with RO water along with 25% waste water for minerals.

I revert my waste water to my garden.
I built small trenches that divert the excess water to all zones of the garden.
However, After awhile I started to realize that I can do so much more with waste water because I'm actually almost over flooding my garden.

So I made a small pond that our local birds can feed off of, I always fill it up once a week, birds seem to be very thankfully and look forward to it.

Another thing I do once a week is water down my compost piles so they can get nice and moist. (not too much!!)


my girlfriend thought of this idea, (because she does the dishes)
I always set aside a 5gallon bucket and my gf uses it too wash dishes, no need to use excess water from the sink.

Some other ideas.
-wash your dog/pets (chemical free)
-wash your car (no chemicals needed)
-fill up water bowl for pets
-fill up spa/pool

heard controversy behind re using water for pets or people consumption. Some say waste water can get contaminated with bacteria are parasites due to membrane and filter getting dirty, this may be true, but keep in mind, water plants "clean" by adding chlorine and other methods of cleaning water before its "safe to use", so wi that said, our water shouldn't have parasites or bad bacteria to begin with. Not sure tho, more research needs to be done so beware.


Those are just some of the things I'm currently doing with my waste water, I'm going to add more ideas down the road with some cool articles I looked up. Also some pics I have of my projects and ideas.
feel free to contribute and let us know what you do with your waste water.

Sustain, and keep it simple

Click to expand...

I came across this when I googled what to do with the run-off... I keep mine on a water hose that I can move to different parts of my yard, 2 1/2 acres. I didnt really have much to contribute because you listed almost everything that I use it for plus some. Kids and the dogs get a clean kiddie pool that I move every 3-4 days. Hell, last summer I had frogs living in it!

I dump it on my backyard shrubs & trees and also my house plants. When the leacheate collector under my worm factory gets full I dilute it with RO wastewater like 10:1 and give it to all my house plants that I do not plan on eating. Good available supply of N in this here worm piss along with a bunch of other stuff you don't wanna ingest. Best thing to do when it's possible is to collect rain: great water source and zero waste. Works best for compost teas plus contains beneficial microbes & macronutrients; no need to add calmag

I dump it on my fruit plants in my backyard, they don't mind it.