I'll Never Do Laundry When It's Raining - and Here's Why

"When it's dreary outside, I usually hunker down and do household chores - running the dishwasher, catching up on laundry, maybe even taking a long shower and shaving my legs. These days, though, I take the opposite approach: I never do chores that require water use when it's raining outside. That's because I recently learned that my city, Milwaukee, has a shared sewer system - which means rainwater runoff, domestic sewage, and industrial wastewater collect in the same pipes."

"When it's raining in a shared-sewer city, naturally there's more runoff in the pipes. And doing water-intensive chores like laundry creates even more wastewater on top of that - enough to overwhelm the sewers, causing wastewater to overflow directly into waterways (in Milwaukee's case, Lake Michigan). That's not just bad for wildlife and natural ecosystems; too much wastewater in local rivers or lakes could also result in contaminated drinking water and potentially make you sick."

Some cities use combined sewer systems that collect rainwater runoff, domestic sewage, and industrial wastewater in the same pipes. Rain increases runoff and doing water-intensive chores like laundry adds wastewater, which can overwhelm sewers and cause overflow into waterways such as Lake Michigan. Such overflows harm wildlife and ecosystems and can contaminate drinking water, potentially causing illness. Skipping laundry, dishwashing, and other high-water tasks on rainy days and scheduling them for dry days can reduce sewer stress and lower overflow risk.

Read at Apartment Therapy