Woha ! dennis...i'm sure that rfeiller never meant it as you seem to have taken it.
I think you have taken his point of view as a personal attack.....
From my perspective this was not so. Please let's not turn this into a slug fest..
I value both your comments. ! ! ! !
I will have to make a filter bed for the water run off. And yes, it will have to be slow.
With the amount of water that will be added to the first reed beds with every load of washing and shower I presume that I would HAVE to speed up the process of purifying the water. Before it gets to the main pond which will be supplying my AP system in the long run.This obviously will have to go through many cleaning beds with various reeds and plants absorbing different intensities of impurities. Charcoal/ activated carbon is one of the ways of possibly adding it to the filter reed beds.

But the thing is - where in nature do you get charcoal/activate carbon in natural reed beds.......?
Is it just more feasible for man to add it in to speed up the process of cleaning the water?
Is this something that I will inevitably have to do?
Would wood charcoal not do the trick? Why do you have to activate it? I thought it was a ready to use product. 'scuse my ignorance.
Dennis, i'm not too keen on the battery acid idea......steam sounds more earth friendly....
Wood.... I have stacks and stacks of wood that could be turned into charcoal......Coconut husks were short of here.... a rare commodity. So with your knowledge.... can this be done here??

rfeiller I don't know much about the politics of water..... I know that here in S/Africa we are running out of the stuff.
Millions are dependable on it and have no acess to it or have none at all. So sad
Hence my small contribution in trying to make a difference.

Thanks to all of you for your comments so far !