I always felt a little bad about watching all of that water just run down my driveway. I’ve been meaning to make a closed system with a pump but have not gotten around to it. So now that it’s summer, I figured I’d just do this: I feel much better and my wife is happy that her flowers benefit too!
IC_Sprinkler by davidgzach, on Flickr
I just started doing that same thing. I weird how your conscious can get the better of you. 
Not sure that putting hot water on your plants or lawn is a good idea. Those first several gallons throught the IC are pretty darn hot. I usually fill up my mash tun for cleaning with the hot water and PBW soak then pump it through a closed loop with a cooler with ice water and submersible pump. Greatly cuts down on the water waste.
My buddy and i run the IC into a rainwater collection bin. that way things arnt too hot when he decides to use the water on his plants. Works pretty good:)
You need to let it run for a few minutes. It cools down fast…
Dave
I run it into a bucket and use it for cleanup.
I run it through the sprinkler too. And it isn’t too hot even initially- by the time the spray falls to the earth the water has cooled substantially.
That’s pretty much all the watering I do for the lawn.
when i was using a chiller i would recirc the water through a bunch of foam ice packs in my mash tun with a submersible pump. kind of rinsed the tun and only used about 4-5 gallons of water. i may start doing this again but with small batches and a four gallon kettle, i have just been throwing it in my fridge overnight
+1 for clean up and also water my hops (I have to take it via bucket to them so it cools more than enough).
That’s why I let the first 3-4 minutes run down my driveway as it goes straight to my hops and is cool by the time it gets there. Now the rest goes on my lawn and my wife flowers. I’ll build a closed system by the winter…
Dave
+1
I started doing this because my wife guilted me into it. 
Hmmm, if the water cools so quickly maybe just run the wort through a sprinkler onto a big tarp and catch the runoff in a fermentor. Already oxygenated too. And you could have cute chicks use it as a slip n slide to give it that old grape smashing feel.
Chicks are naked, right? I like the way you think!
Dave
Naked to be reinheitsgebot compliant
+1 to the world’s only IC water slip and slide. A thing of beauty!