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Study Points Towards a Future of Toilet-to-Tap Water
Some areas may already have drinking water from reclaimed wastewater
A report from the National Research Council said that advancing technologies make it possible to convert sewage wastewater to potable drinking water and that doing so could confront the growing issue of water scarcity.
photo: david buedo
USA Today reports:
Treated wastewater poses no greater health risks than existing water supplies and, in some cases, may be even safer to drink, according to a report released Tuesday by the National Research Council, a science advisory group chartered by Congress. "We believe water reuse is a viable option" to deal with growing water scarcity, especially in coastal areas, says Jörg Drewes, an engineering professor at the Colorado School of Mines who contributed to the report.
"This can be done reliably without putting the public at risk," he says, citing technological advances. He says it's a waste not to reuse the nation's wastewater, because almost all of it is treated before discharge. This water includes storm runoff as well as used water from homes, businesses and factories.
Of the 32 billion gallons of wastewater discharged every day in the USA, the report says 12 billion - equal to 6% of total U.S. water use - is sent to an ocean or estuary and is thus a lost resource.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette notes that growing population in areas with little water necessitate dealing with the scarcity:
But a number of factors could make use of reclaimed water a must for drinking in the U.S. sooner rather than later despite the high public "yuck" factor, said Jorg Drewes, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the Colorado School of Mines and a member of the national Research Council who worked on the report. Those include the increased urbanization of the American population and migration to areas of the coastal South and desert Southwest where water is already scarce.
Water reuse projects can have widely varying costs, the report noted, but Mr. Drewes said there are high costs to importing water into a region where it is scarce.
"Adding freshwater resources as population grows is very difficult today in many areas," he said. "If an area runs out of water it can import it or use the drought-proof supply that is its local wastewater. That already has a pipe system to bring that water in. And in the long run, that's likely more viable and reliable than an imported water source."
USA Today further notes that some people may be unaware that they are already drinking reclaimed wastewater:
In many places, the report says, the public does not realize it's drinking water that was treated after being discharged as wastewater somewhere upstream. For example, wastewater discharged into the Trinity River from Dallas/Fort Worth flows south into Lake Livingston, the source for Houston's drinking water.
43 Comments so far
Show AllAnd no, moving out to the country is not a solution, and is irresponsible. Besides the huge carbon footprint this generates, it only relocates the pollution to the headwaters.
Once a company treats the water, then of course, that company will claim that they own the water, and of course will dictate a profit for that "deliverable".
Robert Callaghan is right, the price of water is going up, and the 1% get another opportunity to squeeze more blood and treasure out of their fellow human beings.
The site also gives estimates of how much water it takes to produce various food items:
It takes
1,000 liters of water, on average, to produce 1 liter of milk.
5,000 liters of water to produce 1 kilogram of cheese.
15,500 liters of water to produce 1 kilogram of beef (including the water taken to grow the feed)
From "The Food Revolution: How Your Diet Can Help Save Your Life and Our World" by John Robbins,
>>"At the present time, more than 13 trillion gallons of water are taken from this enormous aquifer every year, with the vast majority used to produce beef. More water is withdrawn from the Ogallala aquifer every year for beef production than is used to grow all the fruits and vegetables in the entire country. America’s grain belt, often called “the bread basket of the world,” actually produces far more grain for factory farm and feedlot animal feed than bread for humans.
Ominously, the Ogallala’s water tables are dropping precipitously, and some wells are going dry. In northwest Texas, by the early 1990s, one-quarter of the Texas share of the aquifer had been depleted. By then, more than a third of the land in Texas that had been irrigated in the 1970s had lost its water, and had become parched and unable to grow food. Without water, these once fertile farmlands will be deserts forever.
If we continue pumping out the Ogallala at current rates, it’s only a matter of time before most of the wells in Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Colorado, and New Mexico go dry, and portions of these states become scarcely habitable for human beings. This scenario may seem like bad science fiction, but it is being predicted by many leading environmentalists."<<
Yes, there is a serious water crisis looming, already felt in many other countries like China and India. The ONE THING that all countries can do to stretch the available water resources to go further is drastically cutting down on meat and dairy consumption. And we are not even talking of the downstream pollution due to CAFO - simply the primary water input to produce meat and dairy.
We should have been thinking compost (for toilets) a long time ago. Already in the eighties much was being done. http://www.compostingtoilet.org/
Consider the trillion or so gallons of water that gets flushed in the US that could be saved. Then add to that all that is wasted by agribusinesses, especially for raising feed crops or in other animal husbandry uses.
If everyone used compost toilets and did a little urban foodscaping instead of landscaping, I really doubt we would have any water shortages. We would also be able to put all that rich compost to good use.
BTW, tap water is disgusting!! No one with half a brain wants to drink it already. So, that may mean more plastic bottles in the Pacific Gyre. In Mexico we take our bottles to a purification plant and have them filled. There are also water bottle exchange businesses in every community.
Another composting link: http://www.nature-loo.com.au/
Toilet paper manufacture is responsible for cutting down a whole lot of trees, precisely at a time when we need all the trees we can get. A freshly planted tree will take more than 25 years to absorb 1 tonne of CO2. Older trees take shorter time. 1 tonne of CO2 is what's produced by burning 110 gallons of gasoline.
From Wikipedia,
>>One tree produces about 100 pounds (45 kg) of toilet paper and about 83 million rolls are produced per day. Human consumes 27,000 trees daily to make toilet paper. An average American uses 50 pounds (23 kg) of tissue paper per year which is 50% more than the average of Western countries or Japan. (Americans also use "toilet paper" for industrial purposes such as oil filters, which may distort the usage statistics.)
As of 2009, between 25% and 50% of the toilet paper used in the United States comes from tree farms in the U.S. and South America, with most of the rest coming from second growth forests, and only a small percentage coming from virgin forests.<<
Having used the "bidet toilet" (where a small jet sprays water to do the cleaning, hands-free) in Japan and Korea, I have to say I just love these - because of the "clean feeling" afterward.
But the main reason I think the conventional system with sewage treatment plant could be better is because of the "energy" contained in the organic matter that would be "lost" in straight composting, which involves aerobic digestion by bacteria. (And it had better be aerobic, because otherwise it would smell.) Whereas in a sewage treatment plant, methane can be recovered first, through anaerobic digestion, for use as a fuel, and the solid sludge can be dried and used like compost material. The amount of methane recovered in a typical municipal sewage treatment plant can be quite substantial.
Whether it's a capitalist system or any other system, I think until human population decreases to low enough levels, urban centers will be unavoidable and so having a common treatment facility can actually be more economical and, on a system-wide basis, more efficient.
Water use for flushing can be reduced, or "grey water" (from shower, wash basin, etc.) and rainwater can be used for flushing.
Trees not cut for toilet paper, and methane from the sewage treatment plant for use as a fuel (plus the bonus "clean feel" by washing with water instead of wiping with paper) make me think that this could be better than composting, especially for cities and towns. And you still get the treated solids for use as manure anyway, but after recovering methane.
In the future, if they keep it up (since apparently fracking is being spread far and wide), we will all be personally collecting rain water... except in those countries where it is illegal because Bechtel or Halliburton has taken out a claim and now 'owns' all the rain water.
Reclaimed water can and should be used for many purposes, but not drinking. It disgusts me that we are being asked to drink reclaimed water. It is an excuse for polluting a resource, then partially cleansing it and charging large amounts of money for it. Water treatment plants do not get rid of all pollutants, which are on the rise with fracking, prescription drug pee, factory farm runoff, coal tailings and so on.
That water that returns to earth as rain or snow often contains a lot of crap as well - whatever it washes out of our polluted atmosphere.
I think Molly's analysis is essentially correct - well put, as a matter of fact. Plants and soil critters do a lot to treat our water supplies - the problem is we are destroying the wetland and other unsullied habitats that perform this function as well as overwhelming and poisoning the ones we have left, not to mention re-polluting the purified water that is transpired before it hits the ground again, as mentioned above ...
If you don't use "reclaimed" water for drinking, you won't have any drinking water at all. The question is what mechanisms will we use to reclaim it - the one's Mother Nature has so well devised over all these millennia that suit the physiology of carbon based organisms or the artificial chemical ones that suit the physiology of money based ones ....
That may be so for water, given a lot of time, and given "optimum" conditions - the way that Mother Nature intended. At shorter time periods - of the kind that matters to human beings, the current situation is way off-balance. Any time water is pumped out of an "aquifer" at rates far higher than can be replenished, it's an imbalance, and when this water is pumped year-round, it is trouble - for humans and others too. And when this pumped water is used to produce something that results in MORE downstream pollution extending all the way to the ocean, creating a "dead zone", it's more trouble for humans and other life forms. And when enormous quantities of greenhouse gases are emitted in this process, warming the planet, that affects the hydrologic cycle involving glaciers and the rivers fed by melt water and the people and other life forms that depend on these.
I am sure you know all this, and your screen name is "Aquifer". But I just wanted to point out that in shorter time-frames, no one can take Mother Nature and her recycling ability for granted. She is already over-strained. I don't think she can make trees absorb CO2 MUCH faster than normal just because humans are emitting so much of it, and methane too. I really do not know how Mother Nature feels about all this plastic crap floating around and in land fills. I will NOT be the one to tell her, "Here, go recycle all this, like you have always done!". No sir!
Also, I don't think the real problem is with humans NOT understanding and appreciating "the genius of Mother Nature" and her ability to recycle. The real problem, and the real danger, is taking this ability for granted, forgetting that certain **rates*** are FINITE. People colonizing the "New World" might have temporarily forgotten that certain rates are FINITE, seeing all the fully grown trees to be cut down, so much to dig up, so much to burn, so much water to pump out, etc. But the reminders have been coming in for quite a while now - that certain things and certain rates are indeed finite.
>>"How else could she have produced such an amazing plethora of life over billions of years on a finite planet"<<
Well, humans are doing a pretty good job at wiping out a lot of these, for good! And all for what, I'm not sure.
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From "Diet for a New America" (1987) by John Robbins:
>>Rainforest Destruction
A driving force behind the destruction of the tropical rainforests: American meat habit (of course, it's not just American meat habit today)
Amount of meat imported annually by U.S. from Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras and Panama: 200,000,000 pounds
Amount of meat eaten by average person in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Panama: **Less than average American housecat**
Current rate of species extinction due to destruction of tropical rainforests and related habitats: 1,000/year
The point is to point out that Mother Nature can do all this stuff as long as we don't overload or poison her, as i pointed out in a previous post. The idea that we can adequately substitute our puny technology for these "services" or functions is folly.
If we do not understand how and why the system works we will not be in a position to participate in any kind of an intelligent manner in the processes that sustain us as carbon (and water) based organisms.
If we understand that the water we drink is, in fact, continually being recycled we will be quite clear that the water we dump crap in is the water we drink. If we do not understand this we will think water comes from the faucet and goes down the drain and never the twain shall meet .... So one can claim that one doesn't want to drink "recycled wastewater", when, in fact one is drinking it all the time. With that in mind, one pretty damn well be sure that that "wastewater" was properly recycled to remove the waste and if the recycling process is incapable of removing it or only over geologic time, we better damn well be sure it isn't deposited there in the first place ...
I did write in my previous comment:
>>"I am sure you know all this, and your screen name is "Aquifer". ...<<
Sometimes people expand on other people's comments, not with the idea of countering anything, but to add to, or clarify something.
All water is recycled - that's why they call it "the water cycle" :)
It's clear the CD staff has never lived in the country - anyone who has ever lived off well water with a septic tank knows you are drinking recycled water all the time with no problem (as long as your septic tank isn't too close to your well and human density isn't too great) - millions do. Mother Nature provides remarkable sewage treatment, has for millions of years, and can continue to do so if she is not overwhelmed or poisoned. For places where human density is too great, more central facilities are required, but if you are familiar with the work of John Todd, et. al. - Living Machines - you know that these natural systems could be harnessed in artificial facilities - "sewage treatment plants" that can grow edible veggies and fish from nutrients in the sewage and produce potable water and there are various plants that can extract heavy metals and other chemicals.
As for toilet paper - hey, use 100% recycled TP. I agree, no tree should be cut so we can wipe our netherparts. As for showers - whoa, we take WAY too many showers in this country (of course there are a few who don't take quite enough ...) - sponge baths would work quite well for most ...
As for water exports - Maude Barlow pointed out that much of the water that goes to grow our food is actually IN the food so when we export it out of the water shed where it is grown that is a net depletion of water in that region - all the more reason to buy local - keep the water at home ...
John Todd has done some neat stuff - including on Cape Cod, I believe, never got the funding his projects, IMO, deserved ... Also ties in with the preservation of wetlands as Nature's filters -
Kind of like saying 'use toilet to tap water' so the petroleum industry can continue to fuck up the underground aquifers and other sources of water. Cart blanche to continual corporate degradation of the environment and and ecological systems and habitat.
NO WAY! Those corporations are way PASS needs to stop their insidious actions that is so environmentally destructive. They need to serve a lot of hard times and big fines and be made to clean up their messes by hand for their environmental crimes.