Economic conditions of greywater treatment systems

[Yixuan LiParticipant]

For Design Area 5.5, Are grey water system for family popular?Or they use other way to treat grey water.What the average cost of each grew water trenches?It is expensive?Who or which organization support the charges of it?
Thank you.

[Rachel AlfordKeymaster]

Hello,

Thanks for your question!

Grey water trenches are not overly popular in Cape York because of the cost. Grey water trenches are looking at being phased out due to the cost of installation, maintenance, labour and equipment costs. Getting the appropriate machinery on Country is only achievable by a select group of contractors on the Cape, and this is reflected in their pricing. If and when it breaks, there are the same cost factors where the simple cost of transporting the required equipment can make these systems costly to maintain.

Oftentimes there is no greywater management system in place. This means that when people are camping on Country, the greywater can be released into the environment which can have negative impacts and is illegal in National Park areas. This means that groups, such as rangers, are unable to travel too far from a location with greywater management facilities.

In terms of who supports it, we’re unaware specifically of any organisations who are supporting this in Cape York at the moment, however the Centre for Appropriate Technology have indicated that they are interested in investigating alternatives to grey water trenches, due to the high costs.

I hope this helps, please let me know if you have any other questions!

Thanks,
Rachel

[Author]

Posts