Assuming that the reason you cannot use blackwater to irrigate plants is that contaminants get on the food...?

Question

...couldn't you avoid this problem by using a direct drip irrigation system in your home garden? The water remains underground, and never gets "on" the food parts of the plant. Would apsorbtion through the roots somehow contaminate the plant as a whole?

Answer 1

Grey water....the water from peoples sinks, dishwasher, and washmachine.

Brown water...the water from peoples toilet.

Black water....is the highly concntrated poo in RV's, and airplanes. It's usually full of chemicals. Blackwater is also a military group (try not to snicker).

I'm going to guess that you ment to actually be asking about brown water systems, but I'll cover the black water too. I know of no-one who uses blackwater, because of it's highly concentrated, and usually chemical nature.

Brown water systems ARE used, with a growing frequency, as more and more people build earth friendly houses. Houses known as EarthShips almost always use the brown water, to water, and feed a huge bank of plants INSIDE the house. Owners of EarthShips often grow gorgeous houseplants (even pretty big trees!) and vegtable year round in their brown water system.

As Jello stated, there are also some leachfields which grow plants. If you are interested in that, HRM, Prince Charles, as an EXCELENT example of just such a leachfield (AKA ses-bog), in his book about his private estate. The book is called "Highgrove."

Usually those outside, above ground drainfields grow only marsh type plants, and provide EXCELENT habitat for wild birds.

You have to do the system correctly though. Human manure can of course carry human disease back to us.

Hubby and I are building a straw bale house. It will include a grey water system, to water an ENORMOUS sunroom (so we can produce our vetables year round). We are quiet serriously concidering making it a brown water system.

Check out books/information on EarthShips, & the Human Manure book, if you are interested in such information.

~Garnet
Homesteading/Farming over 20 years

Answer 2

Black water or raw sewage needs to undergo a decomposition process or be filtered before is becomes safe for irrigation. that means you have to give it first to nature in some way and let the organic world play with it for a while .
(Grey water can go straight on)

a)THE BIG WAY
first a SEWAGE POND ,overflowing into a french drain leading into a pond ,with aquatic plants ,and fish ,and an over flow gutter with reeds and semi aquatic plants
what comes out at the end ,is almost potable

OR

i gave you this before

b)FILTER(smaller system ,not to drink but good for irrigation)
a tank that receives the black water(with a wall in the middle and a connecting opening at the bottom so that the excrement stays in the first compartment ) ,with an over flow pipe leading into the bottom of another container,
the water forcing its way up through rocks ,gravel sand ,and have some papyrus or reeds on top ,what come out can be used for drip irrigation .

black water straight will block you drip irrigation system in no time ,far to much organic sh+t is included .

OR

c)if you want to put sewage straight into the ground ,
get a long cement drainage pipe ,and cut it in half

place it in a ditch at an angle ,and put some bricks,as islands for the worms to escape the water ,
at the end of the pipe continue the ditch a bit more (french drain)and fill it with rocks (to act as an over flow /filter ,that absorbs )

Close the ditch and plant trees on the sides .

Get the Permaculture`s design Manual ,
it has lots of drawings for many different ideas

replying to jello
there are places where sewage goes in to tanks the tanks have over flows and the places below are saturated with stinky water ,
this water has already been filtered to some extent ,having gone through B)

and is safe for fruit trees and berry bushes ,but for vegetables where we eat the leaves ,it is recommended to have it a bit cleaner .

all depends on what you want it for don`t wash your lettuce in sh*t before you eat it
but you can irrigate your apples with that.

Answer 3

I know people who have their garden over the leach field of their septic system.

The plants grow very well.