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The Best Science Writing Online 2012
Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way...
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Americans produce 32 billion gallons of sewage every day. And we need to start drinking it. After treating it, of course. So argues a report from the U.S. National Research Council. Why drink reprocessed pee? Because freshwater supplies are getting squeezed.
The reports’ scientists, utility officials and engineers note that new technologies are making it affordable to clean up and reclaim such water. And it's not just for drinking—reclaimed water can also be used for irrigation or industry.
The best news? The possible health risks "do not exceed and, in some cases may be significantly lower than, the risks of existing water supplies."
Many of us are already drinking such recycled water. After all, if you're downriver from another municipality odds are your drinking water has already been through their treatment plants—and every other city's upriver from you.
Of course, there are other things we should be recovering from our wastewater, such as the vital nutrient phosphorus that may soon become scarce. But in a world that's having trouble providing enough water for everybody, recycling makes sense. If we can just overcome the blehhh factor.
—David Biello
[The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]
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9 Comments
Add Comment"Americans produce 32 billion gallons of sewage every day."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisyeah most of it verbally!
It seems odd to me that people react to all evidences of local (or global) overpopulation by seeking quick fixes (not necessarily a bad idea if the idea that the fix is temporary is well marked) but without seeking or even mentioning the underlying overpopulation and the desirability (and likely long-term necessity) of reducing the population.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWater shortage? Oh, of course, recycle used water. Food shortage? Oh, of course, genetic modifications to get more food per acre. global warming? well, now, not so bad really, let's just -- hmm, hmm ??
Anyone out there think we really NEED this grotesquely large human population?
All water is recycled water. Also, cities who are downstream from other cities get treated water in two overt ways: The upstream city's wastewater treatment facility, and the downstream city's drinking water treatment facility. Even rural well water is "treated" by percolation prior to becoming groundwater.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think I read that the problem is removing the last of carcinogens and other things that are toxic in tiny doses - if they can be effectively removed in intensive recycling, then hey as said - all water is recycled so why not.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think I saw something about Calcutta India using something like hyacinth ponds (amazingly I think these plants could remove and convert nasty toxic heavy metals into something pleasant) to treat their sewage with the result - fresh water clean enough to grow and eat healthy fish.
On the population issue, if you empower women and increase education, and work on broadening the middle classes and reducing poverty, then you can reverse overpopulation... but as that takes time, and as few have the stomach to start trying to tell people when they can and can't have children (and trying to enforce that), we need all the other solutions we can think of to tide us over.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHopefully over time, religion (and the population issues that it helps foster) will take more and more of a back seat to science and free and equal societies, and things will stabilize and start to get better..,
Sewage might be a viable source of animal based protein. This might be important after the great destruction.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisfor starters,how do we get half the population off this world??? whom do we start with ??? maybe if the gov. puts poison in the chemtrails lots of population will begin to die off,saving us left lots of water and food to drink & eat..maybe china was right,,killing their baby girls,they now have lots of water!!! this sounds crazy but this is whats happening now,so dont drink the water or go outside !!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisso many 3rd. world country's could have clean water and toilets,they dont because their money is spent on bomb making and being stolen by the higher ups.also people become accustomed to living in filth and don't complain, how about the favelas in Brazil up on the mountains ,the sewage has run down the side of the mountains for as long as people have lived there, that's why i don't travel ,the rest of the world smells like sh--
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisReally, drinking water?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe need all types of water: bath, farm, lawn, industrial, swimming pool, etc. I love this magazine but this podcast is just another example of how the media chooses the most dramatic examples. We don't have to drink our pee, but recycling sewage for any other useful purpose is already being done in some place and should be in all.
With the population to hit 10-billion within a couple of decades, we need to be smart with our water now. There will be now room for waste in the future.