Greywater recovery in buildings - Performance possibilities actors and strategies

Sammanfattning: Greywater includes domestic wastewater from sinks, showers, and laundry. Today, most of the greywater that leaves the building contains water and energy that could be re-circulated in the building. There is therefore a potential to recycle the greywater on property, which can lead reduction in water consumption at the building level. There are also gains to be made by recirculating the energy in the form of heat which is found in greywater. This thesis explores greywater recovery taking an actor perspective. When it comes to new water technologies, it is important to analyze the actors involved and their strategies. Both those who support it and those who oppose it. New technologies may produce benefits for some actors but can also be disruptive to other actors. Conflict can emerge between regulators (water laws, health and safety laws, etc) and technology developers. An actor analysis is performed for greywater recycling by a case study of the HSB Living Labs greywater project. HSB Living Lab is located in Gothenburg and has been studied as part of the project hosted at KTH titled “Ensuring sustainability and equality of water and energy systems during actor-driven disruptive innovation” (in short SEQWENS). The case study aims to map the different strategies of actors involved and affected by greywater recycling. Interviews with actors and a literature study are performed for the study. The projects shall be seen as a research experiment. The report concludes from the analysis that the price of water still is too cheap to make greywater recycling a priority for property owners. Further, the study shows that the regulation regarding warm water is not yet updated for on-property greywater technology to operate optimally.