Do keep in mind that laundry detergents, if you use the mainstream store-bought types, have some of the harshest chemicals that are in the home. When you put that around the plant roots, the plants can take some of those chemicals up into their cells, and thus some of it will be in the fruit. These are NOT chemicals you want to consume. Moreover, these chemicals are extremely harmful to the environment around us, and can kill beneficial insects like bees, harm animals like birds, and when it rains the runoff goes into our drinking water and into our ocean (Florida) and is very harmful to reefs and to fish. Please consider that we have plumbing for a reason, and that graywater filled with sewage or harsh chemicals is not fit for putting into your yard and community. Wonderful if you decide to use natural soaps to lower the production of these chemicals in the first place, and their occurrence in your home. But, if you choose to keep using them, please carefully consider not dumping them into your yard so that they can poison your entire community. The more we add such chemicals to our land, through "cleaning," fertilizer, insecticide, etc, the more it builds up around us. Most of these are known carcinogens, so they harm people every bit as much as they harm other living things. Many chronic illnesses are thought to be responses to high levels of exposure to such chemicals over time, so just consider it.
If you're looking for ratings as to which household products are environmentally friendly, check out this website, the Environmental Working Group:
http://www.ewg.org/They give ratings as to the safety of cleaners, cosmetics, sunscreen, food additives, and a host of other things. They give ratings to more than 2,000 commonly found products.
Here is their rating list for laundry detergents in particular since we're talking about it:
http://www.ewg.org/guides/categories/9-LaundryI personally don't have a system to use my laundry water. I don't do frequent loads, and the stupid HE washer my house came with barely uses enough water to get the clothes wet anyway (hence why I wash some things that are not important in the shower because it's just easier). I get far more water from taking a shower than I could with 5 loads of laundry, so it's just not personally worth what it would cost me to put in such a system. My dishwashing is also pretty spaced out.
---
This is slightly off-topic but when I was looking for the links I happened across this article that I thought would be relevant to many here:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/weed-whacking-herbicide-p/It discusses the link between use of Roundup herbicide and cancer, birth defects, and environmental damages - not from the ingredient that is supposed to be the herbicide, but from a supposedly inert ingredient COMBINED with the other ingredients, which had not be previously tested.
"..Argentine scientist and local activists reported a high incidence of birth defects and cancers in people living near crop-spraying areas. Scientists there also linked genetic malformations in amphibians to glysophate. In addition, last year in Sweden, a scientific team found that exposure is a risk factor for people developing non-Hodgkin lymphoma."
It was a pretty interesting article, so I thought I would add it here for those who want to read it.