My husband and I are new to camping. We have a popup that has a sink, bathroom and shower. We don't have a gray water holding tank for the sink and shower (the toilet is self-contained) so we like to get a site with a sewer hookup if possible. We recently camped with a group of friends, some who were tent camping. We were placed in an area that was clearly geared for tent camping (majority of the RVs were located elsewhere) and all of the sites had water and electric. Since it was mainly tent campers I know there wasn't a "gray tank" anywhere to be found so I'm assuming that the tenters were dumping their soapy water on the ground or in grassy areas. Here is my question: Is it proper camp ettiquette to dump gray water on the ground? Is it OK for tenters to do this but frowned upon if someone in a RV or popup to does this? This could save us a couple of bucks at each campground if we didn't need a sewer hookup for gray water and just use the dump station for black water.

Hi,

I think it would be better to have a large container to collect the gray water. It would be appreciated by the next user of the site.

It is not legal to dump any gray or black water on the ground in any state. The state health department would have a cow if you did this. The park also will ask you to leave campground and could call the law to take you to jail. What would the campground be like in a short time if everyone did this? You could tell that a sewer plant was needed. Also if you find a campground with heavy ant problems guess what. The popup people have been dumping gray water on ground. This water had food in it, water goes in the ground and food is on top of ground. Here comes the ants for lunch at your place. COE parks have trouble with popups due to water dumping. People in tents have the same rules as anyone in campground. Do not dump on ground.

Well said, John.

We have a pop up, also. On our very first trip with it, we used a bucket to catch the gray water. Not very good for transporting to the dump station. We went straight to Wal-Mart and got a couple of their green 5-gallon water jugs. These do the job nicely. You can have one collecting the gray water and one in reserve. When one gets full, you just trade them out, and take the full one to the dump station. We later bought an outside sink/kitchen station, due to the tiny sink inside the camper. We added two more of the jugs for this sink, as we still use the inside sink for washing hands, etc. If lifting and carrying full five gallon jugs seems like too much work, you can buy some at RV dealerships/suppliers that are larger and have wheels so you can just pull them, or some you can even hook to your vehicle. These bigger one's might be better for you any way, if you are using them to collect water from a shower. A 5-gallon jug will fill up pretty fast in that case. As far as dumping the gray water around your site, not really a good idea. You'll have bugs all over, smell, and a mess for the kids to run through and track back to the camper. Unless you are doing some primitive camping where there is no dump station at all, the containers are the way to go. We did camp at a state park in South Carolina, I think, that didn't have your traditional dump station for gray water. They had several areas, around 3'X5', boxed in with gravel where you just dumped your gray water.

I've tent camped quite a bit and have never dumped gray water at any place that I've camped at. I usually camp at state parks that have dishwashing stations attached to the bath houses and what few dishes, etc., I need to wash, I take there. The only water I have on site is the water I bring bottled to drink and a few gallon jugs I fill to keep near the campfire...that's it.

RockHound
Where did you purchase your outside sink/kitchen?

I can't remember where we got it. It was around five years ago, but I thought it was at either Cabela's or Bass Pro Shop's web sites. I know we ordered it on-line. I checked both of those web sites, but could not find it. I did find it here, however -- http://www.campingcomfortably.com/gsi-camp...chen-table.html

This is the exact same one we purchased, for the same price. The lower picture shows what you can expect to get, minus the 2 jugs and foot pump. We rotate a couple of 5-gal. jugs for waste water collection. For water supply, we just use a splitter at the campsite’s water faucet and run a hose with a sprayer attachment and hang it at the sink. This works better than a foot pump, in my opinion. You just heat up some water on the stove and fill up one side of the double sink, and use the cold water from the sprayer to rinse. If you do a lot of primitive camping, you might want the foot pump, though. The picture shows it set up in an L-shape, but you can move the wire rack part to the side, back, vitally anywhere that suits your needs. This thing has been big help, not only in washing dishes, but cooking and prep, also. It took several set up/take downs to figure out where to put everything, but it goes pretty smooth now. Let me know if you have any other questions.

And if that ground is federal property the Code of Federal Regulation for the US Forest Service, National Parks, COE, and BLM prohibit spilling, pumping, or other discharge of pollutants and or draining refuse from a trailer or other vehicle except in facilities provided for such purpose.

Minimum fine is a hundred bucks.

I see tent campers washing dishes and utensils at potable water faucets all the time. If caught, I suspect there's a rap on the knuckles for that too.

I'm sure this is frowned upon especially if there are dish washing stations for campers to wash dishes, but I've also seen the same, but it's not the same as if they're throwing gray water onto the ground...the majority if not all of the potable water pumps/faucets I've seen also have drainages surrounding them for the water to drain into.

Edit to add...after reading my post, I guess I was just thinking about the communal or water pump/water faucets that are for all campers use in campgrounds that have the drainages and wasn't really thinking about the faucets that are the water hookups at individual sites that I don't believe have proper drainages at least the one's I'm familiar with.