Drinkable Recycled Sewerage Water? Personally, no way... but what are your thoughts? - (News: Courier Mai

[arnz 0]

News Article

Just recently, in the outlying town of Toowoomba, the residents there have recently rejected a plan to drink recycled sewerage water, although our state premier is planning a referendum over the issue.

Theres an interesting debate here whether to purify recycled sewerage water to make it drinkable, personally though I'm against it because of concerns about the water quality, and the potential problems if the water isnt purified properly to make it drinkable.

[zulfa7155 0]

Actually, some countries in the world are already recycling their water. Its not a big deal. As long as the scientists and researchers are happy with the quality, Its fine by me.Recycled water is not as filthy as we all think. 50% of the water consumed in some nations are recycled. This means that1) We are preserving the clean water for the young generations.2) We can make a good businees of making fertilizers out of the effluents.

[electriic ink 1]

Interesting - although our current water supply comes from muddy streams, rivers and slighly acidic rain. They are hardly the cleanest supplies when found unpurified at their source but with modern cleansing agents they can become fit to drink. How come that that cannot be possible and is so much more unhygenic when done with sewage water?

[Plenoptic 0]

Interesting - although our current water supply comes from muddy streams, rivers and slighly acidic rain. They are hardly the cleanest supplies when found unpurified at their source but with modern cleansing agents they can become fit to drink. How come that that cannot be possible and is so much more unhygenic when done with sewage water?

I agree. Although I don't know if I would use it for my house water that comes off the fridge because those filters go bad and you don't know what your drinking. I would drink it out of bottled water because it would have to be clean or you could sue the company. This would be a nice way to recycle water and save it for other reasons.

[sportytalk 0]

I would hate to think that the water i'm using to wash with and the water I'm drinking was once used to clean up someone else's body or to disinfect various germs.Even if there is a way they can recycle the water cleanly and it meet the appropriate standards, there is still the small chance that as a one off, the water may not meet the required standards.If we managed to drink sewage, then diseases such as cholera would become an issue. I remember studying history at school a few years ago, studying when cholera was at London and seeing images of skeletons in the River Thames.I suppose if every millilitre of water was monitored, i'd use it, but I still wouldn't be happy. Maybe with the modern age of technology, it will be possible to manage our water a lot more effectively in the future.

[mojoman 0]

I'm not personally against it. The water we drink is probably recycled as well. It goes through water treatment plants and is filtered out and cleaned. It should be fine to drink. Although is not always a pleasant though of where the water comes from. Considering our water comes from the rain, ocean, or whatever place, who knows what has already happened to the water, But of course the government would obviously regulate it to make sure its sanitary and safe to drink. Also your link doesn't work, it says the page was not found

Edited November 10, 2006 by mojoman (see edit history)

[Jon Jon 0]

I've no problem with this. It's actually a good idea. Save water and stuff.

[Madkat-Z 0]

I kind of agree with your concerns, but I think its a good idea, since well if we can find a quick efficient way of cleaning sewerage water. It would be better for our pocket books and the environment

[uch4all 0]

Yes i have a say to through in it drinkable pure wayter has the following properties:it must boil at 100 degres cent.must not be smelling, must be presentable. okthats good i know that the water you are talking about has all these qualities but i dont like it it is not good the water is being mixed with chemicals so the chemicals migth have an after effect on the person that drinks it .agian it can expire at any time and if the water is being stored it migth expire and the person who drinks it will be infected with any disease so to my i think that natural water is more preferable to those things they call "recycle water" why cant them use the money for sinking borholes and the letting the people to enjoy it. we are humans anything that we eat in life we affect us either positively or negativelyso iam not in support

[Plenoptic 0]

Well if it's obvious that they are going to test the water before they bottle it and if it isn't cleaned properly they'll discard it from use. But you know that the same water you drink is also water that has been run off from rain into the ground seeping through dirt into the aquifer and by then it is probably mixed with oils and if there is a sewage leak the same problem occurs. People also go skinny dipping, and all that stuff so really there isn't much of a difference. There is a lot of stuff that has been cleaned out of the water you drink today and just don't know it.

[salamangkero 0]

...the same water you drink is also water that has been run off from rain into the ground seeping through dirt into the aquifer and by then it is probably mixed with oils and if there is a sewage leak the same problem occurs. People also go skinny dipping, and all that stuff so really there isn't much of a difference.

I agree. What's to say your tap water had not run through the $#!+ and poo of numerous creatures as surface runoff before reaching a body of water (where a lot of creatures probably also piss on). Sewage would hardly be any different, only, sewage would also have heavy traces of household chemicals, like soap, detergent and other cleaners.

I don't think it's that disturbing at all, so long as I don't see how it is done. It's kinda the same with meat; if I didn't see how blood-smeared my chicken was, I'd totally enjoy my KFC bucket

[shadowx 0]

Well i heard that the water here in the UK has on average passed through 7 people, could be a myth but i think we also used recycled water, and either way we are all drinking recycled water as its urified into water and put into rivers and then goes into the ground then wells then lakes then urified again and drunk again. And as said the water you drink has gone through so many things, in resorviors they breed trout and fisermen fish in them so there is bait, dead fish, fish excretions, eggs along with the fishermens spit and god knows what else not to mention the polution and probably toxins like insecticides and fertilizers so we can see that the filtration proccesses are tight and work wonders to give us safe water and they wouldnt be any different if it was sewage being filtered. Ive seen on TV how sewage is filtered and released into rivers and its a lot of steps from filtering to using coagulant to make fine particles group together and sink, to chlorine etc.. to kill germs and so on... its safe otherwise we would all be very illSo i have no problem with it either

[salamangkero 0]

True, true. Also, let's not forget that sewage, in most countries, also undergoes treatment before it can be released into the wild as effluent water. By the time it reaches the water distribution plant, it'd have to undergo yet another series of treatment to make it all a whole lot cleaner so we see that it really does go through a lot.

 

I must admit, though, if we were to immediately use sewage water, we'd need much more stringent measures. As it is, we're still letting nature, "age, mature, clean and ferment" our water for quite some time before the effluent actually reaches the water treatment plant.

 

One thing I must note, though, why? Why the sudden concern about having drinkable recycled water? At the moment, sewage water, once "cleaned" goes into the ocean, or is used to water plants in the park or whatnot. Anyway, the point is that this water still goes back where it came from; either back to the ground or released back into the water cycle. Sooner or later, it pretty much returns as groundwater, rain or surface runoff, which eventually finds its way back to the water treatment plant.

 

Pardon the humor but are you guys just in a hurry to drink waste water that you can't wait for the Earth Mother to cleanse it herself?

[mojoman 0]

i dunno.....i have a problem with trusting the water i drink to some scientist....after all, not EVERYTHING has been discovered yet has it? and i certainly dont like the idea of drinking stuff that might have been my excrement a few days ago... and after all, is there any real shortage of water lol? id say there was more water than we want, with the ice cap melting and all...

[salamangkero 0]

i have a problem with trusting the water i drink to some scientist

True, but that's pretty much what happens in the world today, whether we like it or not. Our crops are fertilized by synthetic substances created by chemists. Pharmacists brew our drugs, meds and even our daily vitamins. The Internet is constantly developing, driven by efforts of computer scientists.

Just because we don't have 100% assurance that something's safe does not mean it is totally unsafe. If, in a desert or in a water-deficient country like India, you were given a glass of recycled water, would you refuse to drink it simply because of the 0.001% chance it contains microbes you are not immune to? I could be wrong but I'm guessing not