Stealth Greywater Dumping, Do You or Don’t You?
Posted by Rene in Boondocking, Full-Timing Tips, Live, tags: Boondocking, Full-Timing Tips, lifestyle, RV lifestyle, Slab CityWhen you’re boondocking, do you dump? Your grey water, that is.
Our wheels had barely started turning the first time anyone introduced us to the concept of dumping grey water somewhere other than a septic system.
Wisconsin’s Amish country beckoned but the nearest dump station was closed and our grey tanks were full.
We asked a farmer if he knew of another station.
“Yah sure, right there” he said as he pointed to his field.
Our heads spun ’round. “Are you kidding!” we asked. He wasn’t. “Just your greywater of course. Go ahead and pull in, the field needs it.”
We couldn’t believe it. As dedicated backpackers who took every precaution to avoid polluting water sources on the trail, we were horrified.
But our 35 gallon grey tanks were full and we had nowhere to go. So we did it.
The Blue Boy Blues
Avid boondockers know; when you’re settled into a spot, going to the dump is a huge ordeal.
Some folks haul a blue boy around. Many are brave enough to use the blue boy for blackwater dumping, which seems pretty disgusting. We would never, ever get that close to our own poo water (other than the occasional RV dump mishap).
You’ll see blue boy enthusiasts driving 3 miles per hour through Quartzsite, which appears to take longer than just pulling up stakes and moving the rig.
Our fifth wheel is too small to keep a blue boy, so that option is out for us.
Desert Dumping
Our boondocking experiences have taken us to many places where dumping greywater in an open field was accepted by the local population, whether they were land owners or fellow RVers. Usually it’s in the desert.
At the Slabs, it’s a given. Some folks push the envelope of decency by digging gopher holes for grey and black water. Trust me, we won’t go there. Ever.
Playing by the Rules
Stealth greywater dumping is always contingent on the dumping area being safely away from water, other campers and only in barren locations. And always at night (by daytime the puddle has evaporated). We only use biodegradeable soaps and never allow liquid kitchen wastes to go down the drain. That’s just smelly.
I know stealth RV greywater dumping horrifies a lot of people, but the reality is more of us do it than are willing to publicly admit.
So I’ll be the first to step forward. You’re next!
If you do, or are considering the possibilities, here’s a handy little device made specifically for this purpose.
The Valterra T1020-5VP Gray Water Drain Adapter.
We saw a camper in Ajo, Arizona using one. Just attach a garden hose and point it away from your rig. Downhill, of course.
If we’ve lost any sort of respect you had for us over this, we apologize. But I’m just coming clean with our reality. It’s just like a saying among scuba scuba enthusiasts:
There are two kinds of divers out there: Those who pee in their wetsuits, and those who lie about it.
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The environment is important and needs to be protected so we can enjoy it. We need to stop protecting it so much that no one is able to enjoy it. Lines of decency need to be drawn, but the environment was made for us. Use it and use it wisely is all I have to say. Don’t dump grey water where I have to smell it. I was a farmer most of my life, grey water could stink, but it waters plants, they grow a nice deep green, and the soaps in it repel aphids and other pests. Now that saves on pesticides. Stop drinking all the lies fed to us by the environmental groups, somewhere in the late 70′s we found a good balance, now new reg’s are just a form of peeing in the wind.
Now for us in 10 years of RV camping, we have had one black accident on our first night out, and dumped two 10 gallon buckets of grey in pinch. We go to the effort to pull up camp and drive to a station. Probably harm the earth more by driving than by pulling the handle. We do believe the earth next to a heavily traveled path is expendable, as after 50′ nothing from the grey will travel there. Look at time anyway, you will find the earth is one great big etch a sketch, volcanoes, floods and earth quakes are always erasing it and drawing a new land scape.
Hi Darrin, thanks for commenting and reading. Funny you wrote, because it was actually a Wisconsin farmer who was the first person to tell Jim and I it was OK to dump our grey water in his field!
I have to agree with most of what you said, I only wish that more people were smart enough to use common sense!
Rene,
How do you clean your dishes without adding liquid kitchen wastes to your greywater? Do you just use paper plates? Also, is it bad to have liquid kitchen wastes in your greywater? I understand that it might be smelly but if it’s in the tank then can you really tell?
Julia, we’re especially careful about liquids like those found in cans of beans not because they’re dangerous but whew…they can be super smelly if they go into the holding tanks. Since we rarely cook meat, we don’t think about grease getting in there, but if we were carnivores we wouldn’t let that happen. We just sop up as much as we can with paper towels before washing. I notice that sometimes our sink will emit a farty stench but that’s usually from debris left in the P-trap. All I do is throw some vinegar down the drain that that usually takes care of it. I’ve never had to use any greywater treatment potions that the RV stores try to sell us on. Just a little vinegar is all you need for most stinks, and the occasional very thorough rinsing.
Waste not want not says I and as the body so the RV grey tank.
Human dung has been a concern for the traveler for millennium, but the records are scant (or is that “scat”) with regards to waste management. From the Roman marches across the European continent and further to the early caravans across Eurasia, there has been little gray area with regards to grey water as waste managment has always been of vital concern. The old adage “never s**t where you eat” never rang truer than back in the days of pre-germ theory when few folks discussed cholera as an illness born of poor sewage treatment, but alas, ours is a civilized day and age and we now know better.
For those of you who take temporary warmth and comfort in the “pee in the wetsuit” analogy, I would pro-offer that we as a species are always looking for the shortest distance between any two points so if a drip of grey while driving works then congratulations, you’re basically doing what most trains around the world do as well. I recall early in my youth of traveling across Europe via rail and having to answer nature’s knock. I was fascinated that my waste would simply drop from the toilet onto the passing ties beneath me. I’ll never forget Mr. Stool tumbling like a Chinese acrobat when he hit those ties, man, what a site I used to think. But looking back, it’s surprising our effluence would simply drop would drop on the tracks.
I have a neighbor who teaches a few months a year in India, he says the sanitation conditions are so poor that he was cautious about handshakes when he traveled on Indian trains for fear of dysentery, running water is not always readily available and thus sanitation always in question. But how did our ancestors manage?
On the eve of the first millennium the Vikings were just starting to colonize both Iceland and Greenland and with forays into Canada and North America in an area they called the Vinland, how porta was their potty you’ve got to ask?
The impetus for these eastern migrations for these formerly mainland Norsemen & Norsewomen was real estate crowdedness, too many people living in too small an area ergo the hop from Norway, to Ireland, to Iceland to Green Land and the odd visit to North America ala Cape Cod and the eastern seaboard of Canada. But where was the latrine and why didn’t folks perish from contact with their waste? Cause they learned young that you don’t “”s***t” where you eat, not a bad lesson at any age says I.
For the smart camper I would venture the dumping solutions are many, but if you have to dump your dump, then the question that needs to basked is: “will someone eat here any time soon and if so, for how long?”.
Enrico strikes again…
Love the dissertation on dung, Enrico!
We’re not talking dumping our Mr. Hankies here, just the grey water. And for those of us who don’t eat animal products, well, I can bet that our grey water is a lot cleaner than those who do!
Everyone’s honesty about grey water dumping is SO refreshing! Haha, weak pun intended. But seriously, I was shaking in my boots over publishing this and I’m glad to see that others have reached similar compromises and understanding about these RV lifestyle matters!
NOW you’re in trouble!!
I have to admit that we’ve kinda come around to the same conclusions as you. We were avid pack-it-in-pack-it-out backpackers for many years before RVing and so the idea of dumping grey water was horrific for us, and I always rallied against it. After many months of RVing we had an experience very similar to you…somebody told us to just dump it on their land. So, I’m not as nutty about it as I was previously. It’s still something we prefer not to do, and we’ll always follow local rules, but situations do arise where we do it…gently…Never the black tank, but sometimes (rarely) the grey.
Nina
Ummm… yes. Only if desperate though and never black water. If I know we’ll be camping for a long time with no sewer we use public showers and I’ll wash dishes in a tub and throw it out. We do try to water the vegetation when we do.
Oh yes…of course! There aren’t many times other than boondocking that we would do it, but Matt installed a “trickle hose” to our rig so it just drips out a little at a time. That way, you could have it open going down the road and by the time you reached your destination, it’s empty. Or, while sitting still, it doesn’t create a pool.
I figure there is MUCH worse that I could be putting out there. If people are poo poo’ing it…then I hope they aren’t eating ANY conventional/non-organic foods, which put a ridiculous amount of chemicals into the earth. I think people forget the other ways their choices impact the earth. We all have to decide where our “happy place” is regarding our environmental conscience. It’s different for each person…and I won’t judge others. Unless they are dumping their poop next to me. Gross
Miss you guys!
First of all, I have to say I completely understand why they say not to most people do not go the distance and buy biodegradable soaps while RVing.
But on the other hand, most counties in Florida are under a fire warning right now and we use biodegradable soaps so I don’t see a problem with our gray water specifically. The campground has specifically asked that we do not dump our gray water, but I’m thinking about doing it soon because the ground is turning to dust! We don’t take showers in our rig and the soaps we do use are biodegradable.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t it eventually end up in the ground via the drain field ANYWAY?
Ron from HitchItch just sent us a link to a very detailed description about how they handle their grey water when boondocking. Interesting.
I admit the grey water deed… when it is necessary. I don’t make it a habit. We dumped grey water on our own pristine land while building a home in the arid pinion juniper country of western colorado. We noticed that the trees that got the water were able to resist the bark beetles and survived the infestation. I like the “dribble while you drive method” too.
mark
Applawse! Applawse! Thanks for raising your hand!
Hmmmm…we’ve got a serious bark beetle problem here in Larimer County. I might have to consider that idea for our property.
Rene, I admit to being a greywater dumper. The contents of our grey water is soap (a product used in the suppression of wildfires), skin cells and debris, and very little food waste from washing dishes.
I have even stayed at locations where the local rangers encourage grey dumping.
The earth is forgiving and knows how to deal with purifying waste.
Who among us has not peed in the woods?????
Thanks for the giggle David, love your answer!
You guys have caused quite a stink. Pun intended
Not from our tank, but we wash dishes in a 5 gallon basin and I’ve been known to water the grass with it when our tanks are getting close to full. Doesn’t bother me much, and we use biodegradable soap.
Ditto Jay, we tend to handle dishwater this way to save space.
We haven’t done it in the U.S. (we don’t camp in the U.S. much) but we’ve done it in Mexico where open/functioning dump stations are even less common than here at home. And frankly, the way waste is handled at the Slab is one of the reasons we don’t much like it there even though we’re enthralled with the “freedom” notion and at imes enjoy the hippie throwback culture. So now I’ve come clean too! And yes, only gray water.
Bravo Cathryn! Thanks for keeping me company. You’re right, the waste situation at the Slabs can be gross. We stay over by the Canadians, most of whom don’t dig gopher holes (at least any that we’ve smelled).
Freecampsites.net linked to this post over on their facebook page. The discussion there brought up a good point. So, I have to ask. What did you do with your waste, especially poo, when back packing for weeks at a time?
Hey thanks Jenn, I didn’t even know you guys had a FB Page! Good question about the poo. To answer…
When we backpacking, we would dig catholes. I often wondered how many catholes were dug around a particular, popular backpacking area and often worried about accidentally digging one up. We often came across areas where people were too lazy to dig, and that was just SO sick. I mean how hard is it?
In some super sensitive areas we’ve been in, regulations required people to pack out their poo. Eeeeeew! It was at that point we decided that perhaps we should re-consider the whole backpacking thing!
While camping near Yuma, we stayed at a free location, that was as packed was a campground, so we could visit with a few friends from RTR2011. In the trees behind our campsite there were piles upon piles of human waste. I guess they couldn’t be bothered to dig a hole. So nasty. It was the first time I had ever seen anything like it.
oh man…you are in so much trouble! =)
Heh heh! That’s why I didn’t write this when we were actually camped somewhere. With our URL emblazoned on our rig, it’s hard to be stealth.
I’m only in the shopping stages of RVing. but I hope to never dump my grey tank anywhere but a septic tank.
That goes triple for a desert environment like Quartzsite! Desert areas are made up up of micro environments. Things like grey water and other invasive dumpage can impact the delicate balance of the desert inhabitants, both fauna and flora, in ways that are both invisible and enduring. Doesn’t matter if your using biodegradable anything! Once the balance is destroyed in an evironment like the desert it may never recover.
Just because a product is biodegradeable does not mean it’s not destructive, for the record. Many biodegradable products produce methane gases in the breakdown process. Methane was not typically found in the desert. but with the dump foriegn substances it can be found now. You can bet it’s having an adverse affect on the native species!
Rant over!
Cyndi & Stumpy @ RVly Ever After
Cyndi, I hear ya on that, and I totally see your point. I also understand about biodegradeable soaps. I’ll begin by saying that this isn’t something we do on a regular basis when boondocking, I swear. But it’s something that I wanted to own up to because as Jenn called it, it is definitely a pink elephant among boondocking RVers.
My own eco philosophy is this…we all impact this planet to an extent. Every footprint we set down in the wilderness, be it desert or mountain, impacts the ground forever in some way. I think about this when rambling across the seemingly empty desert in my hiking boots, or when mountain biking down single tracks in the Rockies.
Long ago I realized that US citizens weren’t going to give up their cars to save the planet, I stopped hating people for driving and stopped participating in confrontational Critical Mass rides in San Francisco. It’s like trying to argue politics with the opposing side; it gets everyone nowhere.
I finally accepted that as long as we commit to making as minimal impact as possible on the earth, we are that much more ahead of the person who refused. Together, it all adds up.
So we don’t make stealth dumping a habit and only resort to it occasionally. We practice an almost-vegan lifestyle, and we drive as little as possible when we are settled somewhere. At our place in the Rockies, I don’t let bleach or chemicals go into our septic system. I could go on and on.
As our friend Dave Berman likes to say, “commit to doing the least you can do, then commit to doing at least that much.”
I like that philosophy.
I agree with you completely on the Quartzite/Desert area dumping! I wouldn’t dump my gray unless I knew there was a dump station near by. There’s a reason there aren’t dump stations in the middle of the desert!
We’re at a campground with a dump station that is connected to a drain field and the drain field is about 150feet from our campsite. It’s my understanding, anything that goes into the dump station ends up in the drain field then into the ground.
When we’re traveling and our grey tank is full, I might set it to ‘dribble’ a bit as we drive. In the summer, the dribble evaporates pretty quick. I’m looking forward to putting in the USI-RV system, where you use your grey water to flush your toilet. In a really isolated area, one could use a Watercone solar still, and distill the grey water back to fresh water. With water restrictions here in Florida, grey watering for lawns would be an excellent idea. The idea that grey water is bad is peculiar to me.
Danny I’ve thought about that system too. If you get it, I want to hear about it.
This is what we do also when we can’t find a place to dump greywater.