Drinking Recycled Sewage

[Dodge]

when i was in suva fiji there was a hugh water treatment plant, the water from there fed all the resorts, but b4 i knew this is was saying how fresh the water was in my hotel, even my girlfriend said how it was good for her hair , unlike the water we washed with in LA the week b4 when we both had dandrif... i think the water we drink now is second class, dead animals ect floating around . 3 eyed fish maybe???

[nugget378]

I am actually piping up a building at the moment that has no connection to the main at all.
It's a very interesting system, tanks are used to clean the sewage,but it is used only for toilet flushing and the gardens.
The drinking water comes from a huge retention tank that stores the rain water,it's a very expensive system to install though.
Every single fixture is metered and monitored by computer, to keep track of water usage.
I think we will start seeing alot of these type of systems in the future.

[AWD Chaser]

You could end up like the Sewer Mutants from Futuama...

[blue fairy]

I sure will.

I think the treatment plan will be adequate to make the water safe for Consumption.

I recently spent some time at the North Pine Dam, and was horrified to see the lack of water we currently have. More measures should be put in place to recycle water. In particular, grey water in homes.

My household is incredibly water concious, and I fully support recyclying water.

[Scott]

Originally Posted by Shockwave XR8

Will you drink water with recycled sewage content?

Only if it's mine. :

[EB Pete]

anyone on here from toowoomba?

i am and it is kicking up a **** storm! vote is on tomorrow. a radio station here did a poll and it cam out as 80%no 20% yes. don't know what will happen but either way there is going to be some bargin houses for me!

[EB Pete]

has anyone here worked in a sewage plant?

[MO]

Guys I voted yes...why because tertiary treated water/waste is so much cleaner than your tap water and your bottled water.

Think about this water is a finite resource the same as oil...one day it will run out...this is based on comments about the fact that there has been no new water for thousands of years.

All our current water is recycled by nature...just think you could be drinking some molecules of Capt' Cooks pee!

[Outbackjack]

Nothing wrong with it. Probably cleanest water most have ever drank.

[mcflux]

Originally Posted by boss-290

Err, hang on, we are surrounded by water. SEA WATER! Duh! :

If you are going to go through all that trouble treating human waste, why not use sea water, there is plenty and it will never run out!

That involves insane amounts of energy and infrastructure to process though. Either through micro-filtration (reverse osmosis), or by thermal means.

Raw water from reservoirs contain a fair amout of crud in them. Treated sewage is similar, although with an elevated salt content. Treated sewerage salt content is nowhere near ocean concentrations so implementing RO technology on what is basically contaminated fresh water would be far easier/cheaper than for salt water.

Nothing is wrong with recycled sewage, it is fully treated. And when I say treated, I don't mean that the contaminants are masked so that you don't taste them or get sick from them. They are REMOVED. So the water you drink is pure H2O.

[Paris Hilton]

yeah why not. probobly healthier to drink unpurified sewage then that maccas/kfc crap

[39ClevoUte]

I agree that it may well be technically fine. But we are not in a situation nor will we be, were there is not enough clean water to drink...If we start using recycled water for all non drinking purposes.
How crazy is it at the moment that we use drinking quality water to flush the tiolet, water the garden and wash the car??? If we stop these practices we will have non recycled drinking water forever.

[Peuty]

Originally Posted by EB Pete

anyone on here from toowoomba?

i am and it is kicking up a **** storm! vote is on tomorrow. a radio station here did a poll and it cam out as 80%no 20% yes. don't know what will happen but either way there is going to be some bargin houses for me!

Mate I am from Goondiwindi, and I swear if I see anothe one of those goddamn ads I am gonna scream.

I voted yes, however. As far as I am concerned, if the town votes no, don't whinge to anyone when you all die of thirst etc.

[Scott]

Recycled water should be fine so long as it doesn't taste like ****.

[xbgs351]

Originally Posted by matsbafairmontghia

The water that we drink now is already recycled by nature at any rate, dr karl did a spiel on it once, how the earth has not produced new water molecules for quite some time.

Dr Karl was wrong. New water gets created all the time. Combustion is a good example.

[ebxr8240]

I'm undetered about it!!!

[jimmy_c]

what you get out of the tap has fish pooh and other nasties in it anyway. Recycled water has to pass through cleaners, filters and agents to be fit for consumption.

its not like they get raw sewage and pump it back into the water system

How do you think marine animals like eating our crap. 90pc of the water that ends up in the ocean is cleaners than our tap water. According to an engineer i spoke to at (*&^%^ water)

[GCFordChic]

Ignorance IS bliss.

At the moment i turn on the tap, go 'ahh water' and dont really think about how it got there.

I hear on the news that poopie water is going to be recycled and they will expect me to use it. Now i turn on the tap and go '(shudder) poop'. It is stuck in my head now...even though when i decide to think about it i know it already once contained heaps of all sorts of assorted crap anyway.

When mum first bought 'recycled' toilet paper years and years ago it took her 2 months to convince me that it was normal paper being recyled not 'toilet paper' being recycled. Mind over matter. My mind is crazy so it won, i saved pocket money to buy my own toilet paper for 2 months... dont worry ill go back to my padded room now...

[normxb]

I don't see the difference between treated sewage & treated sea water , look what flows into the ocean at the moment , Sewage outlets on the coast , Ships "flushing out holds" ,rusting sunken ships , fish & sea animals , people swimming in it . People seem happy enough to drink that water if it's treated , but when you mention sewage ? ? ? ? .
I lived on a farm for 17 years on tank water (7,000 gals or 31,500 L) off the house & garage roof . You get bird poo , dust etc , but it's the best water I've tasted . Also makes you appreciate & be conservative with it .

When living in Sydney my wife had very bad Dematitis all her life , moved to the country & it cleared up in 2 weeks , so whats the water like that you're using now. Remember the open canals from Prospect to Sydney ? ? ? but everyone still drank that with all the pollution about.

I don't see a problem with recycled water .

[Smoked]

Alright people, always those who have no clue what they are talking about that make the noise about an issue being wrong.

From what ive read, there are a few people that have a civil engineering background, so you'll know exactly what im on about.

Within Waste Water Treatment, there is four treatment phases;
1. Preliminary Treatment,
2. Primary Treatment,
3. Secondary Treatment, and
4. Tertiary Treatment

1. Prelimanry Treatment
This phase removes large Particle from waste to prevent harm to Treantment plant pumps and prevent further ongoing contamination by allowing a surface area for organic growth. This process can also remove bad odours from the effluent by aeration. This achieved by a screen and grit Chamber.


2. Primary Treatment
This phase involve the removal of more particles (Total Suspended Solids, TSS) and treatment of some Biological agents (Biological Oxidising Demand, BOD). The phase involves are large Sedimentation Tank which removes pollutants that Float or settle and aloows the eflfuent to pass on to the next stage.

Remvoal Rates
TSS 60%
BOD 35%


3. Secondary Treatment
The stage involves further removal of solid polluntants but mainly removes BOD. This is achieved by oxidising the Effluent and allowing bacteria to consume oxygen and grow until they grow to big and can be removed by settling. This is achieved in several different forms, most common of which is activated sludge.


Removal Rate
TSS 85%
BOD Larger than 85%

This is the point at Which the Outflow from the plant can be released into waterways.

4. Tertiary Treatment
This is the final stage which the water suitable to be Drinking Water Treated and consumeable again. This involves the remvoal of nutrients (Nitrogen and Phosphorus) and heavy metals. The process in volves Aeration and then conditions of solidifcation and then removal.


From here the water is then treated with UV which kills any remaining bacteria. The water then can be released into water ways or passed back into Storage reservoirs.

Remvola Rate
TSS Greater than 95%
BOD greater than 99%

Any questions?

[EB Pete]

Originally Posted by Peuty

Mate I am from Goondiwindi, and I swear if I see anothe one of those goddamn ads I am gonna scream.

I voted yes, however. As far as I am concerned, if the town votes no, don't whinge to anyone when you all die of thirst etc.

i live outside of toowoomba and have lived on tank water all my life. we have never run out of water. i personnaly think that if we got everybody from cities/towns and got them out on a property they wouldn't waste water on there garden or waste water at all. i have 2 bros a one sister and our whole family used to have a bath in the same water when it got really bad. now i couldn't imagine what city folk would say if they had to do that. all it comes down to is respecting what you have. and since they wasted it all they are wingeing! well let them suffer for all i care!



as i said before until you see/work on the machinery at sewage pump stations you have no idea what it is like. and i'll add 1 more thing to stir the pot, if 1 of these filters breaks down and lets 10 liters of sewage through the concil will not tell the public. i can garentee you that.

pete j

[normxb]

Good post , Smoked .

Great to hear from people "in the know"

[GCFordChic]

Smoked, that was a great post, very informative, unfortunately logic and (now having learnt from your post) education are not the first things to come into my mind when the first i heard of it was from the damn media making it sound so gross with their 'And in the 6 o'clock news, sewage being used for drinking water!'.

I see the title of the post and still cringe. However, over time this though will subside. Thanks again, now at least i know how it works in more detail than just 'treated sewage'.

[Smoked]

Going over it again, i made alot of spelling and grammar errors, but most people should get the idea of how it works.

[DA68ZA]

Originally Posted by normxb

. Remember the open canals from Prospect to Sydney ? ? ? .

Do i best swimming hole in sydney , used to swim under the bridge at the cumberland hwy heaps of room under it / or at the castles at greystanes were the water came up after going underground cause the aquaduct leaked to much and they replaced it with pipes .
Man that water was cold and full of snakes , always looked up stream before u jumped in . Remember they used to empty it every couple of years and use a bobcat to clean all the crap out of it . The %hit people chucked in it . :

[mcflux]

As for "fish pooh" coming from your tap, that's not true.

Raw water is collected from either a spring, river or reservoir. Yes, this has fish pooh in it, but not for long. From there it is pumped/piped to a water treatment plant.

Where the wastewater treatment plants use biological means (bacteria, sunlight, etc) to treat the sewage, water treatment plants use chemical means.

Incoming raw water is filtered, then suspended solids are removed by means of flocculation and coagulation. I always have trouble remembering which is which, but:

I think flocculation is the means of introducing "sticky" material to the water (polymers, etc) which sink to the bottom, and collect suspended solids along the way.

I think coagulation is when a charged material (ie an iron solution, etc) is introduced, which attracts the suspended solids due to its charge, which causes the growing clumps to grow heavier and sink to the bottom.

The distilled water is decantered off, and the sludge at the bottom is removed. Or, alternatively, a process known as Dissolved Air Flotation (DAF) releases a lot of tiny air bubbles to the surface, and on their way they collect the flocculants and coagulants. These form a scum on the surface which is then skimmed off, and the water beneath is piped to its next treatment phase.

Now, the water may have a pH drop due to the iron coag, so lime is dosed to neutralise this. I think I might have some of this back to front, maybe after the lime is introduced to counter the iron (coagulant), a flocculant is introduced into the now-pH-neutral water to remove the lime particles.

In other words, the iron coagulant collects most of the suspended solids, but in turn makes the water somewhat acidic. Lime is introduced to counter this. Then flocculant polymers are introduced to collect the lime in the water.

This treated (but not disinfected) water is then stored in a covered storage area, be it a basin or a large tank. When it is required for consumption, it is treated with chlorine or hypo and distributed into the town's retic system.

I guess pictures would help, but I'm sure wikipedia or howstuffworks will have info there

-Dave-

[Panda]

I agree that it is all in the mind.

We got one of those 15 litre bottles with the water chiller and everyone in the house thought it was much better than drinking tap water. After buying a couple of new bottles ($17 for 15 litres !!) I started topping up the bottles from the tap instead of getting new ones. I kept this up for months without telling anybody else in the house, and no-one knew the difference, they still prefered to drink the 'bottled water' over the tap water!!

I eventually 'fessed up, and was of course promoted to 'biggest ***** in the world', but my point was proven - it's all in the mind. Same applies to treated effluent - it's all in the mind.

The bloody media blowing things out of proportion again - suggesting that they will be drinking treated effluent only. The fact is that the treated effluent will be put into the river they draw their drinking water from. Not only that, but the treated effluent only represents 20% of the water treatment plants intake, the remaining 80% is the same stuff they have been using.

Panda

[Smoked]

Not Bad Dave, fairly accurate description of what is done. Most water is clorine treated, but UV and Ozone treatment is anoher disinfection technique.

[MO]

Smoked and Ghia5l....great posts...hopefully will change a few ppls minds.

[vztrt]

The germans have been doing this for years and the water is actually cleaner than our tap water.