About to drink sewage - common sense wanted

[Warrior 4 Jesus]

I have 3-4 minute showers but use 2-3 big big buckets to collect most of the water (and water the garden with it). That's how we've been doing it in our household for the last few months.

[Pinecone Tortoi]

CreatureArt - LIKE WHOO YAY!! SOMEONE WHO'D BE WILLING TO DO IT! w00tw00t. I admires your willingness to help!

Hmmmm... well, instead of money, you could ask people to pledge to use less water in specific ways, like the ones you've mentioned here. You could still drum up publicity to raise awareness. It's obviously something you're passionate about.

That's sort of what I was thinking. That I'd get a list happening of ways to save water and have them commit to that. It's more about the awareness and attitude.

Passionate? Well, in part. It really bugs me when people think that just cause it's not them that's making it the worst, that they don't need to pick up the slack for the real problem people. But in part, I'm sort of attracted to the novelty of it all. (Shame on me!) And perhaps the 'social experiment' of it all. I've long thought of using the internet to change attitudes and now I have a chance to try it for a good cause. ^^

Nate - whoaaah. 30 seconds of water. Respect, man, respect.

Mithrandir - This means you'll not be joining the cause? XDDD

Piney.

[samuraidragon]

Here's an article on a process that among other things, can take in carbon-based anything and turn it into completely sanitized water. That goes for sewage, medical waste, rubber, anything.

http://www.discover.com/issues/may-03/features/featoil/

[Pinecone Tortoi]

Here's an article on a process that among other things, can take in carbon-based anything and turn it into completely sanitized water. That goes for sewage, medical waste, rubber, anything.

http://www.discover.com/issues/may-03/features/featoil/

Whoah, that's amazing! Respect to people trying to produce things like this!

Piney.

[Warrior 4 Jesus]

Oh, that's good. But medical waste? Oh gosh. I wouldn't want to wish that on anyone - sanitized or not.

[Sammy Boy]

Ultra Magnus - Ugh, you and me both. I know there's some places out there - like an environmental shop called 'Biome' (which sells, amongst other things, recycled car tyre notepads, circuitboard notepads, hemp bags, shower timers and water powered alarm clocks) but I'm not aware of an actual conservation group we could support. Presumably there's a few that adopt the cause, but I'm not sure which ones. What say we start one of our own? Some online water saving movement? Sounds fun, eh?

I did a search, and think the Australian Conservation Foundation (http://www.acfonline.org.au/) may fit the bill. However, I will soon be close to broke due to necessary financial commitments, which is why I am currently holding off on sponsoring any more charities / non-profit organisations. Once my finances bounce back up, I will start thinking about chipping in.

Regarding recycled water, I was talking to a work colleague about this today and he reckons that it's not as bad as it sounds - no doubt it will be made filtered / purified and drinkable before they actually ask people to drink it. It's probably even slightly better than tap water. But I wouldn't really know, since this is just what he told me, and didn't quote any sources.

Anyway, I hope things will be ok for your area.

[Warrior 4 Jesus]

This just in: I've read (from realistic sources) that Adelaide has been drinking filtered sewerage water for a week or so now.
And I'm not dead yet.

[Warrior4Christ]

This just in: I've read (from realistic sources) that Adelaide has been drinking filtered sewerage water for a week or so now.
And I'm not dead yet.

For a week?? I'm pretty sure that article was saying that it's been years!

[Warrior 4 Jesus]

Oops, your right Sam.

[samuraidragon]

Oh, that's good. But medical waste? Oh gosh. I wouldn't want to wish that on anyone - sanitized or not.

Well that's the thing, it breaks it down to a molecular level. It doesn't just clean it, it reverts it to its original state.

If you take 100 pounds of medical waste for example (transfusion bags, needles, razors, and wet waste), it breaks it down into 65lbs. of oil, 10lbs. of natural gas, 5lbs of carbon and metal solids, and 20lbs. of water.

You should read the whole article, it's quite interesting/amazing.

[Warrior 4 Jesus]

I know 'jack all' about science but it's sounds really interesting. I'll give it a go.

[JayF]

Recycled water? We've been drinking that for the past seven years now. That's not going to change anytime soon because the available land in my country simply can't store enough water to feed the needs of every industry and household in the country, not to mention all the ships that past our ports.

It'll take a while, but you'll forget you're drinking recycled water soon enough, but great call on the water saving measures though.

[Puritan]

I understand Singapore has been recycling water for quite some time (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEWater or http://www.pub.gov.sg/NEWater_files/index.html) and I understand the technology (usually reverse osmosis) has been around for decades for use in applications that require high-purity water or desalinization. Really, all recycling water does is speed up the natural process of water recycling using technology. The water you're drinking has probably been drunk by millions or billions of plants, animals, and people before, we just don't think about it because the water has gone through natural cycles and is purified before we drink it (hopefully). So long as you take care to separate the water from less safe materials, it doesn't really matter if the water came from an underground aquifer or your local wastewater treatment plant, except that people cringe at the latter.

[Warrior 4 Jesus]

Samuraidragon, that oil purifier article was very interesting. I would like to know if there is a similar process involved in purifying our recyled water for drinking?
Where could I find this sort of info on the Net?

Thanks

[samuraidragon]

Samuraidragon, that oil purifier article was very interesting. I would like to know if there is a similar process involved in purifying our recyled water for drinking?
Where could I find this sort of info on the Net?

Thanks

It's not just an oil purifier, but since that's one of the byproducts that will turn the most heads, it's what they are billing it as. "Turn anything into carbon black" probably wouldn't command the same attention. haha

The process does purify water, you wouldn't need an alternate machine. Since the product they're aiming for isn't water, the water is just recycled back into the system to grind the new materials.

However, if the product they were aiming for is pure water, and all they were feeding into the machine was water, then they wouldn't need to reuse the water as a lubricant methinks. If that's the case, then they would be able to use the water for drinking.

They would still have to power the machine though, and the power usually comes from the natural gas produced by other materials.

[Puritan]

Typical water purification is similar to the method used by Singapore, to my understanding, and generally consists of chemical treatment (chlorination and fluoridation as well as treatments to remove unwanted elements like arsenic or radium), reverse osmosis, UV treatment, and sometimes distilling. Reverse osmosis is described here and here, and the Singapore government site I mentioned above gives a good overview of their process as well.