Would you (or do you) drink recycled water?

Technocrat

Would you (or do you) drink recycled water?

Kai Howells

Tue Jan 30 01:00:31 -0800 2007

Health+and+Medicine

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Here in Australia at the moment, we're undergoing one of the worst droughts in recorded history. As the lack of rainfall continues, Australia is quickly running short of drinking water.

In Queensland, the state government has decided to push ahead with a controversial plan to build a waste-water treatment plant to provide enough drinking water for the population of South-East Queensland, yet one prominent politician, Clive Berghofer, is spearheading a campaign to bring the project to a halt.

There are many areas around the world where there simply isn't enough fresh water to go around - waste water treatment seems to be a proven technology with an end product that is often cleaner than drinking water from other sources - yet still there is a stigma attached to drinking your own sewerage.

If you look at the big picture, we've all been doing this for a very long time, as the total amount of water on Earth remains fairly constant over time, however there is conceptually a big difference between water that goes through natural cycles of evaporation, precipitation, collection, filtering and distribution to that provided by a treatment plant.

Further south in Victoria, the State Government is also looking at waste water treatment plants, but for industrial usage, leaving the "natural" drinking water for people - I would imagine that this will pose much less of a hurdle for the general population to accept, but the way things are going at the moment, it definitely looks like this issue will be here to stay.

If the end result is measurably cleaner, clearer and better tasting than "natural" water, would you have a problem with drinking it? Do you currently live in an area where such practices are commonplace? Is Mr Berghofer unjustly playing on people's fears to further his own political aims, or does he have a valid argument?

Would you (or do you) drink recycled water?

femto

Tue Jan 30 08:03:29 -0800 2007
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The questions in my mind are "how effective is the filtration and testing?" and "what guarantees that treatment is not being subverted?" Apparently London's water supply has measurable quantities of hormones and drugs in it, which have come from people's urine but not been removed by processing. I'm not sure how the measured levels of these substances compare to the level at which they affect a person's body or are dangerous. Personally I could do without a continuous low level dose of prozac. There is also the question of whether there are substances in recycled sewerage that just aren't being tested for. Do we really know every chemical in urine and its effect on the body? I'd view it similarly to mobile phone radiation: unlikely to be a problem, but pretty well impossible to definitively rule out under all circumstances.

I gather that in the Queensland proposal the treated water will sit in a dam for an average of three years before being consumed. Presumably this is plenty of time for sunlight, bacteria and so on to completely break down any remaining substances? How long before this 3 years is reduced though? As demand for water goes up, one could imagine a government taking the cheap option and just drawing more water from the dam so reducing the standing time.

Recycled water seems to be a matter of credibility. I'd be prepare to drink it if I knew it had been treated properly and had had time for any remaining nasties to dissipate. The problem is that Australia's politicians have well and truly used up their credibility, to the point where most regard "politician" as a synonym for "professional liar".

Would you (or do you) drink recycled water?

r.doughty

Wed Aug 13 05:15:43 -0700 2008
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I was brought up in London, and for the first 32 years of my life (before migrating to Australia) I don't believe drank I anything other than recycled water. It was not any secret, we were taught about it when I was in primary school in the mid-1940's as part our of normal education. We didn't regard it as anything special. It was always regarded as being extremely safe. Both my parents were never sick apart from the rare cold. My father lived until he was 82, and my mother passed away in 2007 at the age of 94. So what's the problem?

On my arrival in Australia I was disgusted to see all this waste being pumped out to sea polluting the ocean, especially as we live on the driest continent. I do get tired of people coming up with all these scare tactics

Would you (or do you) drink recycled water?

computersareevil

Tue Jan 30 08:21:59 -0800 2007
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The obvious answer is we all drink recycled water. Some to a greater extent than others, but it's all been recycled endlessly for eons.

That said, it seems like a reasonable compromise to use recycling for industrial water and "natural" water for residential service for the moment.

Would you (or do you) drink recycled water?

Alan

Tue Jan 30 08:32:14 -0800 2007
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The question is, if not recycled water, then what?
Ther is no choice of "pure", the only "pure" water is distilled, and that's not good for you. There are impurities in every mouthful of water or food. It's a matter of degree.
If you get paranoid about ppm of urine in water, don't even think about what's in any other drink. Or what was spread on your vegetables down on the farm. Or where eggs come from.

Would you (or do you) drink recycled water?

J Melomel

Tue Jan 30 15:05:09 -0800 2007
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"Ther is no choice of "pure", the only "pure" water is distilled, and that's not good for you."

There's not actually any scientific evidence of this claim, beyond depriving you of fluoride for your teeth.

Would you (or do you) drink recycled water?

computersareevil

Tue Jan 30 15:49:49 -0800 2007
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There's no scientific evidence that distilled water is pure? Cite a reference, please.

Would you (or do you) drink recycled water?

Charles E Hill

Tue Jan 30 16:56:33 -0800 2007
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His argument was that there is no evidence distilled water is *harmful*.

Here is a link to lots of stuff about that.
http://www.newtreatments.org/doc.php/WisdomExperience/107

General summary -- there are no reputable, English-language studies that can back up the assertion that drinking distilled water is harmful. I can not speak to the non-English language studies.

Would you (or do you) drink recycled water?

computersareevil

Tue Jan 30 17:22:30 -0800 2007
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Ah-ha! You've cover it on both providing a reference and smacking me upside the head for not reading carefully enough. Thanks.

OT: Comment reply notice emails are back! Thanks Bruce!

Would you (or do you) drink recycled water?

Harry Tuttle

Tue Jan 30 15:20:38 -0800 2007
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I already drink recycled water. On average, each glass of water I drink has been through seven other human's kidneys, and been through a processing plant each time. There may be measurable quantities of all sorts of 'stuff' in there, but having water to drink is better than not having enough, and the limits on pesticides, heavy metals etc. are low enough for them not to be a concern. Natural water (of any kind) is radioactive due to the tritium (natural abundance in groundwater between approx. 100,000 and 3,000,000 atoms per gram, with a half-life of 12.32 years). Shock! If you were to drink 'natural' groundwater, just hope the bacterial load is not too high, and you don't live in Bangladesh (arsenic contamination of the groundwater is a big problem there). Treated water, even if recycled, is excellent - and far better than what most of the world's population are forced to drink. My vote is that Mr Berghofer is playing on people's fears and ignorance.

Tarco

Would you (or do you) drink recycled water?

Kai Howells

Tue Jan 30 15:39:24 -0800 2007
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I don't know if it's bad form to reply to your own story submissions, but this way I can keep the story relatively factual and then put my personal slant in here =)

I think that recycled water is a necessary path to take in the current climate here in Australia - the Vic government's decision to use recycled water for industry is a great idea, and a whole lot more acceptable to the voters, but even using it for drinking, provided that the treatment is to an acceptable level, this is something we're going to have to face.

Mr Berghofer is stirring up emotional arguments to further his own goals, he's spending millions of his own money on convincing people that it's simply unacceptable, whereas people need to face the facts and make up their own minds (ha! as if!)

Having said all this, drinking water is a bit of a red-herring in this debate - it's industry that (by far) uses up the most water, and with the vast majority of this water, it would make no difference if it was recycled or fresh - it never goes near any people and is instead used for washing stuff, or cooling stuff and things like that. Irrigation is another huge waste of water, in it's current form, with open irrigation channels baking in the sun and huge quantities of water evaporating from them before the water gets to where it's needed - there was a recent development (that I'm going to have to google for) about a polymer in powder form that you can sprinkle on a pond or dam and it spreads to form a layer a couple of molecules thick and it helps cut down evaporation - otherwise, covering irrigation channels would prevent the approximately 30% of the water evaporating before it gets to where it's needed...

Would you (or do you) drink recycled water?

Richard Young

Tue Jan 30 17:59:54 -0800 2007
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They say that London water is very pure.

Anything that has been through that number of kidneys must be pure....

Would you (or do you) drink recycled water?

AB3A

Wed Jan 31 17:05:26 -0800 2007
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Since I work for a water and wastewater utility, maybe I should throw my two cents in here:

1) All these technologies for recycling water are a grand idea --when they work.

2) The problem comes in when you ask what to do if it doesn't work.

We run Tertiary treatment plants now with plans for Enhanced Nutrient Removal. The water we return to the river is actually of a better quality than the fresh water we put in the pipes for people to drink. However, things happen. We'd like our systems to be idiot proof. Avoiding water recycling removes most of the hazard.

The bottom line is that people don't go to school hoping some day to grow up and be a wastewater plant operator or supervisor. We don't get the best and brightest except by happy accident. We would need some bright and dedicated people to make a scheme like this work. Are societies up to this standard?

Would you (or do you) drink recycled water?

Bhima

Thu Feb 01 01:32:27 -0800 2007
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care to elaborate on the "Enhanced Nutrient Removal" bit?

Would you (or do you) drink recycled water?

AB3A

Thu Feb 01 10:00:14 -0800 2007
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In addition to Aerobic and Anerobic digestion, flocculation, filtering, chlorination, and sulphonation, there are other treatments to encourage bacteria to die and flocculate out. Some methods use methanol. I've even heard of using Industrial Grade Molasses (expensive!). The latter are collectively referred to as "ENR" in our part of the world. I have no idea what it might be called outside of the Chesapeake Bay region.