
We need to start drinking recycled wastewater - nols
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160105-why-we-will-all-one-day-drink-recycled-wastewater
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noir_lord
> finding that while 49% were willing to try recycled wastewater, 13% refused,
> and the rest weren't sure.

This is the end result of an education system that has not prepared people for
the modern world, if we engineer a solution that produces water of a purity
greater than water from a reservoir and and half of people are still not sure
it is safe to drink then we have a massive problem.

For the record: I've no issue with grey water recovery systems, every drop of
water I've ever drank has been through at least a few fish in it's time.

~~~
jbob2000
The same effect is noticed with GMO foods. They're better in all regards, yet
there are people who are afraid of them because "not natural".

I don't think this has to do with the education system. My friend's father has
a terminal illness, and in his attempt to understand and rationalize it, he
thought that he did it to himself by leading an "unnatural" lifestyle. The man
has a masters in mathematics and owned a software company, he's quite
intelligent.

I think people just try to rationalize their situation, sometimes they rest on
the idea that natural is better.

~~~
15charlimit
One of the issues with GMO foods is that we don't actually _know_ for a fact
exactly how the changes we make in them work, or what effect they may have in
the human body over long periods of time. We just don't know.

~~~
ethbro
As opposed to "naturally" cross-breeding strains and selecting for traits
without genetic sequencing?

Changes are changes, whether random or induced mutation. I feel better if
there's at least one brain inspecting the changes vs throwing dice.

~~~
Htsthbjig
Cross breeding does not induce mutations. Cross breeding mixes genetic code
that already exist on the original plants.

Random or induced mutation like they do in GMO has lots of unintended
consequences(for example radiating it). It is like a program that has not been
debugged, only that a crash could be people dying or getting ill in the
thousands or millions.

Also mixing genes from species that have nothing to do with each other like
creatures that live in deep ocean that emit light with those that live on the
surface will also have unintended consequences.

Human beings could be cocky and arrogant. I have a river near my house.
Someone had the brilliant idea of introducing an alien small fish to help
native fish as food. The unintended consequence was that the new small fish
ate the eggs of native fish and made them disappear completely from the river.

~~~
ethbro
_> Cross breeding does not induce mutations. Cross breeding mixes genetic code
that already exist on the original plants._

And why do you think that genetic code within the same species is different in
the first place...?

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tokenadult
I went to the BBC story kindly submitted here to read it. At the BBC story
that opens this thread, I see a linked BBC story "Solving a Space Station's
Toilet-Shaped Problem"[1] describing how difficult it has been to do water
recycling on the International Space Station, where the extreme cost of
transporting more water up into near earth orbit would provide a powerful
incentive to develop technology to recycle water. Being in free fall in the
limited space (and isolation from earth's ecosystem) of the space station
provides its own tough engineering challenges, but evidently even rocket
scientists haven't completely figured out how to do toilet-to-tap water
recycling in all needed cases.

[1] [http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150527-solving-a-space-
sta...](http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150527-solving-a-space-stations-
toilet-shaped-problem)

~~~
Cyph0n
What do rocket scientists have to do with designing water purification
systems?

~~~
tokenadult
_What do rocket scientists have to do with designing water purification
systems?_

On the assumption that you may not be a native speaker of English, I'll
mention that here in the United States, at least, the term "rocket scientist"
(which some people who work on the International Space Station project
literally are) is a synonym for "very smart person." In other words, my
statement is that even though the International Space Station presumably has
enough prestige and budget as a project to hire very capable engineers, those
engineers have not found it easy to design a toilet-to-tap water treatment
system (as the linked article in my first comment reports). Yes, designing a
system to work in free fall while confined to the space station is itself a
difficult engineering problem, but even here on earth in normal-g conditions,
it looks like there is a lot of engineering work still to do on the problem of
potable water recycling.

~~~
fleitz
It's really more of an issue of space / weight, it's pretty easy to setup a
water recycling system on earth just by using the right soils, plants, etc.

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kpil
In a way I do. I drink water that comes from a lake that about 1 million
people poops into... On the other hand, it's a big lake.

I'm lucky in one way to live in Sweden where there is virtually unlimited
fresh water (except in a few places). On the other hand, it doesn't stop
people from trying to save water, for no particular reason at all, other than
some general climate angst. Water is really cheap - somwhere around 1 EUR per
m3, and there are no big lawns that needs water. (And if they do, and it's
large, you probably have a lake or a stream within pumping distance nearby.)

It's a bit counterproductive. Old sewer pipes are clogging up because of
modern toilets that use very little water, and dishwashers and washing
machines should probably be set up to use ten times more water in cold pre-
cycles and while rinsing, to be able to save a bit on the warm cycles.

I can add that we probably have one of the best waste treatment facilities in
world, so the total volume through the system is more or less irrelevant,
except some marginal costs for chemicals and pumping.

But no. EU mandates that saving water is important...

The utility companies are now forced to increase the water rates- typically
the fixed component, since the total used volume- and their budget- is
shrinking.

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jbob2000
Sounds like this needs a brand change. "Recycled" kind of implies that there
is still something "left behind".

Why not call it BluWater or something simple and marketing-like? Follow up
with some blah text like "BluWater is the freshest and cleanest water humanity
has ever drank! You can get it straight from the taps!"

~~~
maaarghk
Disturbingly, your extremely condescending idea is probably exactly the kind
of thing that would actually work.

~~~
SubZero
A condescending idea would have been to call it Brawndo. "It has
electrolytes..."

~~~
Skunkleton
Hey! That's got what I crave!

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SubZero
Wouldn't most tap water in the US fit under this definition? My father used to
work at a waste water treatment facility. At one end of the plant was all of
the raw sewage that came in from the city, at the other end, it had been
cleaned and purified to the point you could swim in it and probably be OK
drinking from it. I know that from there they didn't just dump the water back
into the local rivers and ponds, it went back to the water treatment facility
not too far away where it found its way back into homes.

~~~
djrogers
Very few cities _don 't_ 'just dump the water back' \- that's actually the way
it works outside of a very very small handful of places. The reason for these
treatment plants is so that the water that gets dumped into the environment is
clean. Well, pretty clean - there are still things that aren't removed today
with even the most advanced treatments, such as hormones/contraceptives...

~~~
s_q_b
My family owns a civil engineering company that deals with wastewater
management.

A lot of it is treated with bacterial vats, chemicals, and UV, and then run
back into local tributaries, because while it's safe for the environment, it
isn't quite safe for human consumption.

A glass or two won't hurt you, but I wouldn't want to drink it regularly,
mostly due to the cocktail of pharmaceuticals that can't be filtered.

A lot of that water is also used to irrigate large tracks of land not used for
food. Many golf courses use this method, and sometime big pipes just run
through forests spraying treated water onto drought-prone areas.

Once you get past the "ick" factor, waste water management is actually pretty
cool.

~~~
JBReefer
Don't you risk building up pharmaceuticals in the soil around the forest
pipes?

What a weird world.

~~~
ethbro
I'd imagine (guessing) most pharmaceuticals are fairly short-lived vs
biological processes? Otherwise, you'd either only need one pill or it would
build up in your body.

I suppose it's possible that they're only broken down by human biological
processes, but that seems unlikely given the diversity of microbial life in
the environment (and inside us!).

~~~
logfromblammo
Some drugs are not metabolized to a great extent before they exit the body.

For instance, an arctic shaman would eat poisonous mushrooms, taking the hit
for the dangerous toxins in the fungus, then other people would drink the
shaman's urine, which still contained the active hallucinogenic chemical, and
go on a much safer trip. The hallucinogen would persist in this fashion
through multiple kidneys before it was no longer worth drinking someone else's
piss.

Now imagine that instead of pissing into a cup, you're pissing into a creek,
and someone downstream will be taking a lower dose of something that was
prescribed to you. That's one of the current problems with just running the
wastewater output to the water treatment input. The treatment systems can
sterilize and flocculate, but that makes it _biologically_ sterile, not
_chemically_ sterile.

It's similar to the difference between _distilled_ water, _deionized_ water,
and _pure_ water. There will be some things that your specific purification
process does not remove. If you have no outflows, your water system will
become like a salt lake, where soluble chemicals enter via the tributaries and
are left behind when the water evaporates, thus making the lake saltier and
saltier the longer it exists, until it is so salty that otherwise soluble
salts precipitate out in certain weather conditions.

Essentially, you would need a desalinator plant between your wastewater plant
and the water treatment plant, and those are somewhat more expensive than just
diluting your more problematic waste into the whole ocean.

~~~
ethbro
I understand the principle (though upvote for the example!), but my question
was after leaving a human body whether or not natural processes (e.g. UV) +
microbes in the environment would break those chemicals down in a reasonable
timescale or if they persist? From s_q_b, it sounds like they do get broken
down, albeit with an effect on the flora and fauna.

~~~
logfromblammo
It depends on the chemical.

Protein-based drugs, such as oxytocin or insulin, are likely to be consumed
and recycled into component amino acids.

 _Most_ molecules left out in the environment will _eventually_ be oxidized,
have an important bond cleaved by UV light with enough energy, or undergo
thermal decomposition.

As sunlight, dissolved oxygen concentration, and temperature can vary wildly
just by moving a few meters away, and the chemicals themselves have different
stability, it is very difficult to predict how long a pill that was flushed
down the toilet will persist in the environment.

Generally speaking, certain drugs are only useful _because_ they take longer
to degrade inside the body. It wouldn't do you much good to get an injection
of a drug if your body's proteases chop it up to uselessness in the first ten
minutes, or if it zooms right to the liver and gets methylated, or whatever it
is the body does to clear foreign chemicals. In those cases, microbes will
also have a hard time turning them into something else.

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zenir
Most tap water in Germany is "recycled" water. I think this goes for most of
Europe? Drinking tap water and adding your on carbonate is even a thing here
(German use the word as synonym for carbonated water). "If anything, recycled
wastewater is relatively sweet" \- Said no tap water drinker ever There are
still worlds between the US and Europe..

~~~
djrogers
Not true - ground water accounts for 80% of Germany's drinking water, with
reservoirs accounting for the rest. Germany has a very strong set of waste
water treatment laws, but that treated water is either used commercially, for
irrigation, or dumped into rivers and lakes, just like it is here in the US.

Before you get all high and mighty with your anti-americanism, check your
facts.

~~~
_Codemonkeyism
Not sure what -he- meant with "There are still worlds between the US and
Europe", but there are worlds between Germany and the parts of the US (large
cities West and East coast) where I've been.

A lot of water has such a heavy chlorine smell and taste, I can't drink it -
same goes for US soft drinks that are created with tap water, can't drink.
There is practically no smell or taste in German tap water [0].

[0] I might be biased and not taste it any longer because of growing up here

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ryan606
There would be no shortage of water if it was priced correctly. Instead,
nonsensical "water rights" contribute to less-than-optimal uses (like growing
rice in the California desert, or water-hogging almond trees) and shortages
for those who need it.

~~~
PretzelPirate
Lets not forget the huge amount of water wasted on growing feed for livestock.
Its ridiculous how much less water farmers would need if they grew crops from
human consumption rather than cows (and yes, some cows craze on open land for
food, but that has plenty of other issues associated with it).

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kafkaesq
Weird article.

It talks about why toilet-to-tap is technically feasible, but not
(specifically) why we "need" to adopt it, let alone whether it's inevitable.
In Perth, or anywhere else. (Yes, it mentions general factors. But at no point
does it make a logical case to support what it says in its headline).

BTW, a prediction: in the same way that corporations have strenuously (and in
some cases, successfully) lobbied for prohibitions on labeling GMO-derived
foods as such, or rGBH-derived milk as such -- one day we'll equal if not more
energy put into efforts against against labeling toilet-derived drinking water
as... exactly what it is.

And I'm sure one day, these efforts will ultimately succeed, also.

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avita1
The article mentions mass desalination, but it doesn't actually go into how
impractical it is compared to recycling wastewater.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/11/world/asia/11water.html](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/11/world/asia/11water.html)

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theseatoms
I genuinely do not understand the aversion to drinking recycled water. It's
all recycled water!

~~~
Xophmeister
Tell that to the homoeopaths /s

~~~
adrianN
If drinking waste water makes you sick, drinking highly diluted waste water
will cure you.

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funkysquid
Well cities have a somewhat captive market - if they pump it to your house,
you'll either use it or pay extra for bottles, and at the least you won't
shower or flush your toilet with bottled water.

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justnot4me
It is pouring with rain outside; as it often does in every part of the UK
where the BBC are based. It may be that in some parts of the world people do
need to start drinking each others urine; but unless the climate changes here;
I think we can probably stick with the stuff that falls out of the sky.

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seivan
Singapore has invested a lot of tech into this as the Malaysia keeps fucking
with their water supply.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEWater](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEWater)

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twothamendment
All of my drinking water is recycled. Pull it out of the well, put it back in
the septic system in the ground where it came from.

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cameroncf
Everyone who lives downstream of a water treatment plant is already drinking
(diluted) recycled wastewater. Most of the liquid water on the planet has
already passed through a human body countless times. It's all recycled. This
is not news.

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jkot
Hm, how about reversing "toilet-to-tap" into "tap-to-toilet"? I guess its too
complicated to flush toilet with water from shower or dishes.

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mastahype
Those "Tiny" houses do it already. We have the technology.

~~~
jkot
It was pretty common in soviet Czechoslovakia. Another "high tech" communist
trick is to put flush reservoir to ceiling, higher pressure requires about 30%
less water.

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Joof
I'll be honest; I always assumed this was already standard practice in places
where it made sense. Is this untrue?

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pcurve
I was fine until I read this:

"If anything, recycled wastewater is relatively sweet,"

~~~
DrScump
Well, diabetes _is_ becoming more prevalent.

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xylon
lovely

