Would you drink recycled water?
@chemstudioweb (24)
Australia
July 6, 2007 12:01am CST
Drinking treated sewage is a proposition as emotionally wrought as it is scientifically feasible. It was time to gather together the facts and arguments on both sides of the issue. Here they are, then, and I leave to you to make up your own mind.
The Australian story so far... In July 2006, Toowoomba residents vote down a proposal for the Queensland town to boost drinking wotater supplies with treated waste.
In the drought-stricken town of Goulburn in NSW, councillors are coucillors are considering a $32 million scheme to pump treated effluent into the Sooley Dam catchment. They hope to secure community support by undertaking extensive public consultation.
In Canberra, discussions are underway about adding reated sewage to the city's drinking water supply.
In Perth, the Water Corporation is considering pumping treated effluent back into an underground water source.
In Queensland, as part of Premier Peter Beattie's water-crisis strategy for south-east Queensland, recycled sewage will be introduced into the water system that feeds Brisbane and the Gold Coast as early as next year. Plans for a referendum on recycled water were scrapped due to the severity of the state's water crisis. "These are ugly decisions," says Beattie. "You either drink water or you die."
3 people like this
4 responses
@arachne (6)
• United States
20 Jul 07
I say that as long as the end result was clean water, then go for it. I mean, spring water has animal waste in it, right? Water will prove more valuable than oil one day, and I say we should really start conserving it now. Besides, we should be worrying about how weak we're making our immune systems by wanting everything so freaking sterile anyway.
@investorshub (286)
• United States
6 Jul 07
It is not a good idea to drink reclaimed water. Although it probably won't kill you it does contain more microscopic biological entities which may promote illnesses in certain frail members of society. It is also not recommended to use reclaimed water on crops or other vegetation grown for human consumption due to health risks. Remote as these risk are, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, or to put it another way, a mL of prevention is worth a litre of cure!
@lilaclady (28207)
• Australia
6 Jul 07
I have been in many arguments about water...I never want to have to drink recycled water, people say to me you can't tell the difference well I say the dna of sewage would always be there, I used to say to people why don't they take sea water and take the salt out and people would say that is too big a job and would cost too much, well thankfully I live in Melbourne and now that is exactly what they are planning to do.
I have also been in an argument with out local Council, I hate having a nature strip out the front of my house, if I didn't have to look after that I would get rid od the lawn on my property, they sent a Council member to my house to explain we have to have nature strips because there is too much water going down the storm water drains, so their argument is the nature strips soak up a lot of the water.
So getting back to drinking water to me there is a better solution rather than recycling sewage, why can't they redirect the water from the storm water pipes and clean that up rather than drinking human waste...
To me there just isn't much thinking going on in the places where there should be....
I would have to be dying of thirst before I would drink recycled water no matter how clear it looks.
@coffeeshot (3783)
• Australia
6 Jul 07
Isn't recylcled water actually cleaner than the water we're drinking now? I've thought about whether or not I'd drink filtered water and although the idea seems gross, it's really quite necessary. We have no choice. Unless you're just going to buy bottled water for everything you must drink it. I think it's mind over matter.
