Photographer : Erin K. O'Neill
Before my dad retired, I used to tell people that he 'pushes buttons at the shit plant,' which is really the simplified and vulgar version of what he really did: he was a technician at a Waste Water Treatment Plant in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA. In short, my dad recycled water.
In my hometown, all water that came out of the tap had some recycled water in it. Sewage was pumped to my Dad’s work, where they processed all the gunk out. The water was then let go into the Huron River, where it flowed downstream to the Water Treatment Plant. It was then treated again, this time made suitable for drinking. It’s not unlike the proposals to introduce more recycled water to Australia.
Australia is the driest continent in the world. Brisbane is facing level five water restrictions. Parts of New South Wales will be completely without water if pipelines aren’t built. In Sydney, the infrastructure is mostly in place for recycling all treated waste water: Sydney Water has around 20 sewage treatment centres, but only one recycled water plant. Of the 1.2 billion litres of wastewater collected and treated each day in Sydney, only 34 million litres of it is recycled.
This is not enough. Imagine if the proper pipelines were built, and all of the treated waste water was put in the reservoirs and then treated for drinking.
The scientific consensus is that this is perfectly safe and no harm will come to anyone. If anything, it’s likely that the water is safer, as it will have been purified twice instead of just once. The recycled water, after being filtered, will go through a process called reverse osmosis, and then though ultraviolet light and peroxide cleansing. The “yuck” factor is just a state of mind.
Think about it. Non-recycled water has been sitting in reservoirs, lakes, or rivers. With wildlife living in it. And people swimming in it (which you know means someone’s peed in it too!) And who knows what kind of pollution going in. So, what’s the difference between that and recycled water? An extra cleaning process is the difference.
The truth is that all water is recycled. The same amount of water has been cycling though its three forms for as long as the Earth was cool enough for it to condense into liquid form, which has been billions of years!
It is downright wasteful to not reuse our fresh water wherever we can get it. Once it is let into the Pacific it is useless−desalination requires heaps of energy, which in turn means heaps of environment-damaging CO2 emissions. It will take 800 hectares of forest to counterbalance the CO2 emissions of one desalination plant being built in Perth. And not to mention that those trees need water to grow.
In addition to basic water saving practices, recycled water can help alleviate the drought and help prevent the situation from digressing to this level again.
How do I know this?
Catalyst 2005, 'Desalination', ABC, 7 April, http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/s1340461.htm
McCutcheon, P 2007, 'Recycled water inevitable in NSW, says PM', 7:30 Report, 29 January, http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2007/s1835830.htm
Sydney Water, Our systems and operations, http://www.sydneywater.com.au/OurSystemsandOperations/
