 |
| A water fountain at San Francisco’s Exploratorium challenges people’s assumptions about where their water comes from. Photo: Windell Oskay |
iON has long advocated drinking sewage. Some communites in California already drink recycled sewage and one of the USA’s most prosperous areas, Silicon Valley, is planning to.
Video: California plant turning raw sewage into drinking water
KQED
This fall, Santa Clara county residents will get a new source of water. This water is local and pristine. In fact, it’s cleaner than almost anything coming out of taps today. There’s also an endless supply. But – for now at least – no one will drink it.
Instead, water from the $68 million Silicon Valley Advanced Water Purification Center will flow into segregated, purple pipes to irrigate lawns and cool power plants.
That’s because the water is recycled from wastewater – sewage – from a wastewater treatment plant across the street. Engineers say it's possible to purify sewage water until it’s cleaner than much of what residents drink today. The bigger challenge, they say, is convincing people to drink it.
A few years ago Brent Haddad, an environmental engineer at UC Santa Cruz, noticed that he kept finding himself at industry meetings listening to water managers complaining about an “irrational” public unwilling to accept perfectly clean, recycled water.
“It is quite difficult to get the cognitive sewage out of the water, even after the real sewage is gone,” says psychologist Carol Nemeroff.
For now at least, you definitely do not want to use the phrase ‘Toilet to Tap.’
Audio below: ‘Toilet to Tap’ Planned for Orange County Water, National Public Radio
Audio below: Why Cleaned Wastewater Stays Dirty In Our Minds, National Public Radio
Video: California plant turning raw sewage into drinking water
KQED
This fall, Santa Clara county residents will get a new source of water. This water is local and pristine. In fact, it’s cleaner than almost anything coming out of taps today. There’s also an endless supply. But – for now at least – no one will drink it.
Instead, water from the $68 million Silicon Valley Advanced Water Purification Center will flow into segregated, purple pipes to irrigate lawns and cool power plants.
That’s because the water is recycled from wastewater – sewage – from a wastewater treatment plant across the street. Engineers say it's possible to purify sewage water until it’s cleaner than much of what residents drink today. The bigger challenge, they say, is convincing people to drink it.
A few years ago Brent Haddad, an environmental engineer at UC Santa Cruz, noticed that he kept finding himself at industry meetings listening to water managers complaining about an “irrational” public unwilling to accept perfectly clean, recycled water.
“It is quite difficult to get the cognitive sewage out of the water, even after the real sewage is gone,” says psychologist Carol Nemeroff.
For now at least, you definitely do not want to use the phrase ‘Toilet to Tap.’
Audio below: ‘Toilet to Tap’ Planned for Orange County Water, National Public Radio
Audio below: Why Cleaned Wastewater Stays Dirty In Our Minds, National Public Radio
