We no longer remember exactly when they appeared, this summer no doubt. In sinks, washbasins, next to bathtubs, we began to see more and more buckets, bowls, watering cans, to collect water for washing fruits and vegetables, hands, plates or children. Of course, we already knew that water was precious, but the idea remained abstract. The heat wave and watering restrictions played a key role. No more question of wasting “grey water”, as dirty water is called.
In Chartres, Caroline Obringer has installed basins in all washbasins and sinks. Ok, there is a little Marseille soap in the water but, in the plants, it is good against aphids. Her 3 and 7 year old daughters also collect the one from their bath. And in the toilets, the family installed a 1.5 liter bottle in the flushing tank so that it fills up less. Near Beaufort-en-Anjou, Claire and Pascal (some of our interlocutors wished to remain anonymous) keep a watering can in their shower to put in the water that is run while waiting for it to be hot, and wash themselves one after the other to avoid having to heat twice. “It is not possible that there are 3 or 5 cubic meters of water leaving in the pipes just because it is not at the right temperature”, believes Claire. In Quimper, Denise and Raphaël Guégan, retirees who were already using “roof water”, have added a bucket in the shower for the vegetable garden. At Odile and Philippe, also retired, in the 14e district of Paris, it is also since this summer that we collect the water from the sink in a basin to water the plants on the balcony.
It had been a few years since the question of gray water and its recovery had been a subject of debate among green engineers, or in decreasing exchange groups. Now all walks of life are affected. In the city or in the countryside, in a house or an apartment, these economical fireplaces have one thing in common: do-it-yourself solutions. Some almost lower their voices to say that they no longer flush “with every pee” or that they no longer take a shower every day. A brick in the toilet cistern, cold tea in the planters, pots left to soak in handwashing water… At the origin of these initiatives, people who admit to having thought little about it until then, who “knew but did not realize”admit they no longer look at the transparent liquid that comes out of the tap in the same way or still have images of reports on villages without water this summer in their heads. “We are carefree, and one day we wake up”, summarizes Myriam Pied, 50, specialist in edible wild plants. She lives in a village in the Pyrénées-Orientales, which is still subject to water restrictions today. “The flush, we don’t flush it anymore! » In the toilets, she uses the water collected in buckets placed under the sink, in the shower and outside.
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