Greywater Reuse And Recycling Potential: The Case Of Mwanza City

Abstract

Greywater is wastewater emanating from domestic activities such as laundry, dishwashing, and bathing. This water can have useful on-site uses like irrigating landscape and vegetables in tower gardens. However, its user potential need to include quality studies for determining its safety and achieving public health and environmental protection. Lake Victoria receives greywater from Mwanza City environs and therefore, protecting it from greywater pollution is very important. This research work with study components including socio-economic and the quality of greywater is adding to the need of protecting the lake from pollution. The results, Faecal Coliforms values ranging from 12 to too numerous to count (count/100 ml.) and Total coliforms values of 17 to too numerous to count (count/100 ml.) are clearly showing that, the greywater available in Mwanza is not safe. Moreover, it is evident from the heavy metals' results from liquid samples that, the values are insignificantly very low (<0.01 mg/L for Pb and Cu). The pH values are ranging from 5.9 to 7.5 while the recommended World Health Organisation (WHO) range is 6.76 - 8.0. The research is proposing tower gardens as treatment facility for greywater in Mwanza City.