“The groundwater-based water was not as well liked as IPR or bottled water,” said Mary Gauvain, a professor of psychology at UC Riverside and co-author of the study. But now, six California water agencies employ IPR to replenish their drinking water sources. Think of all the water that goes down the drain every time you rinse an apple or hose off your car. It's great stuff, she said, but people don't want to drink it. Researchers also took into consideration participants' personality traits. As initial water restrictions took hold, a lot of ideas that were long dismissed as too controversial, expensive, unpleasant, or all three, started getting another look. Still, the study's results are promising – although the challenge of getting people on board with recycled wastewater remains. She described a technology called tertiary recycling, a three-level system that starts with sewage and ends with "really excellent, good quality water." These reactions, both men’s and women’s, are the subject of the team’s next research. By continuing to browse the site you are agreeing to our use of cookies in accordance with our Cookie Policy. Being in the water business the way we are and the number of years we have been in it, we know the technology is there to do it correctly. Tertiary Treatment – Specific substances are removed at this point. In your home, it includes household water from the kitchen and bathroom, as well as water from washing machines and rain runoff. El Paso, Texas, is fighting the impacts of climate change by turning their sewage into drinking water. We’ve read some studies that say an average city that recycles all its wastewater could reduce how much “fresh” water it needs by 60 percent. As a country, this equates to 5.8 billion gallons of water per day that is going to waste. Plus, the use of recycled water is hardly untried and untested. l, Subscribe to our newsletters & stay updated, University of California, Riverside and Santa Barbara City College, Water Replenishment District of Southern California, Los Angeles County Department of Public Works, Denver Water Utility Selects Xylem for ‘Toilet to Tap’ Demo, Ferguson Partners with IWSH to Celebrate World Toilet Day, Counsel to Schulz Holding Sued for $750M in Alleged 'Massive Fraud' in Sale of German Companies, Op-Ed: Schools Face Heightened Risk of Legionella, Midland Industries Appoints John Gerber as CEO, Grundfos ALPHA2 High-Efficiency Circulator, Greenbuild International Conference and Expo. p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-align: justify; line-height: 11.0px; font: 10.0px 'Times LT Std'} Singapore's 'toilet to tap' concept Wastewater-reuse plants could change that by soon recycling enough sewage to meet 50 percent of the nation’s water needs. Efforts in the 1990s to develop water reuse in San Diego and Los Angeles were beaten back by activists who denounced what they called, devastatingly, “toilet to tap.” Perhaps not surprisingly, participants more open to new experiences liked the three samples about the same with no clear preference. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality approved Wichita Falls' proposal for a toilet-to-tap reuse program for up to six months. Researchers at the University of California, Riverside and Santa Barbara City College asked 143 undergraduate students to judge conventionally treated, groundwater-based tap water, bottled water that had gone through reverse osmosis and “indirect potable reuse” (IPR) water. The problem is what's been termed the magical law of contagion, she said, which essentially says once something has come in contact with something disgusting, it's always in contact in people's minds. p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-align: justify; line-height: 11.0px; font: 40.5px 'Times LT Std'; color: #2b89c7} (2011, October). As the world's population grows and the climate continues to change, many locales are facing severe shortages of drinking water. Toilet to tap, however, does present most of us with a strong “yuck” factor. So the “yuck factor” will only be imaginary. Recycled wastewater is safe to drink, but the thought of drinking water that once ran through the kitchen sink or the toilet isn't appealing. What's Wrong With This Picture. Population growth and climate change are stressing water resources, reviving interest in recycling sewage for drinking water. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Last summer, 8 On Your Side dug deeper into the “Toilet to Tap” plan — officially called the Tampa Augmentation Project. The researchers from the California colleges hoped that by showing that IPR-treated tap water tastes the same as groundwater tap water, they could make this recycled water more appealing. In the indirect potable reuse (IPR) method, after the water has been highly treated, it's blended with the water in an environmental buffer like an aquifer or a reservoir and then makes its way into the potable water supply. Required fields are marked *. Water will be deposited into groundwater or surface water reservoirs. Toilet to Tap – Not as Horrendous as You’d Think! p.p3 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 10.0px; line-height: 11.0px; font: 10.0px 'Times LT Std'} Tritium water cannot be sepatated from nonradioactive water. “We think this research will help us find out what factors people pay attention to in their water decisions, and what populations need to be persuaded to drink IPR water and how to persuade them,” Harmon said. Water will then be disinfected by ultraviolet light, ozone, or hydrogen peroxide. And while the technology exists to turn sewage into drinkable water, the trick is convincing people to swallow the stuff. This website uses cookies to improve your experience. Those who were more nervous and anxious preferred the IPR and bottled water over the mineral-rich groundwater tap water. Instead, the water went to irrigation. In order to work towards sustainability, we must all keep each other informed. The process is as follows: Primary Treatment – Larger particles including sand and silt are removed by flowing across screens and along a lagoon or settling basin. While studies have found IPR removes virtually all contaminants, no one has considered its relative taste in a blind taste test or in a scientific study. While we aren’t exactly talking about it, “grey water” while certainly not meant to drink is perfect for watering backyard plants and gardens. If this is true, then we flush out almost 24 gallons of clean water per day. They have acknowledged, however, that the recycled water can still contain pharmaceuticals, pesticides, and industrial chemicals. The “toilet to tap” motto is mainly used by those that are misinformed or uninformed. In drought-ridden California, there are already six state agencies that use wastewater that comes from an IPR source, according to the University of California, Riverside. "It is important to make recycled water less scary to people who are concerned about it, as it is an important source of water now and in the future.". So if you are wanting to see if you can install this water system into your house to start conserving water, you can have a look at sites such as https://bouldenbrothers.com/how-plumbing-services-help-conserve-water/ and others that will give you options to conserve on your water usage. It will stay there for approximately 6 months to be purified by natural processes. The water is then sent to the final sedimentation tanks where the bacteria have a chance to settle to the bottom so they can be separated from the water. Secondary Treatment – Biochemical reactions take place here. Recycling water is becoming a necessity for a sustainable water future. Most people who know about it hate it but are too busy with the demands of life to do anything about it. The “toilet to tap” motto is mainly used by those that are misinformed or uninformed. Therefore, if they can prove that the process truly kills the remaining microorganisms, then there would be little reason for the public to be opposed to drinking recycled water. If you live in a city like Anaheim, Calif. you’re already drinking it. In the direct potable reuse (DPR) method, wastewater is highly treated with advanced processes and sent directly back into the potable distribution system. IPR water refers to treated wastewater that’s intended to be put back into groundwater supplies. These include the Water Replenishment District of Southern California, the Orange County Water District, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works, the Inland Empire Utilities District, the city of Los Angeles, and the city of Oxnard. Efforts in the 1990s to recycle wastewater in San Diego and Los Angeles were beaten back by activists, who coined the derisive term toilet to tap. Robin Shreeves is a freelance writer who focuses on sustainability, wine, travel, food, parenting, and spirituality. So in reality, “toilet to tap” has been taking place and it is a beautiful thing because we will finally be able to conserve water the way we should be conserving it. Last but not least, a zap of ultraviolet light and a bit of hydrogen peroxide disinfects further and neutralize other small chemical compounds. An ingenious method to fight California’s water shortage, the GWRS takes an unlikely resource—sewage flushed down the toilets in Southern California’s Orange County—and transforms it into drinking water that exceeds all state and federal drinking water standards. CNN's Sanjay Gupta reports. In the big picture of the water cycle, that water can eventually make its way back to our drinking water, but it doesn't go directly into any water source that is directly used for drinking. In the midst of California’s historic drought, cities and towns are looking for any source of water they can find. There is in fact plenty of space to become available when the defunct power station right next to it gets demolished. Modern water-purification technology is considered totally reliable, using micro-filtration and reverse osmosis, which pumps water through permeable membranes, and ultraviolet light to remove all contaminants. The inevitable squeamishness over drinking water that was once waste ignores the fundamental fact that water is water. In the big picture of the water cycle, that water will eventually make its way back to our drinking water. We use cookies to provide you with a better experience. Our toilet water ultimately goes back to a river, lake, or ocean. It must be treated first, however. Prior to conducting the test, researchers hypothesized the three waters would earn equal scores. Sewage treatment consists of three stages: a primary treatment, a secondary treatment, and finally a tertiary treatment. I am sure that the technology will take it out but I would like to see the technical people involved in this process make the public more aware that one particular fact is that we know we can kill the bacteria, the viruses, the cysts, we know that we can make the water perfectly clear and clean-looking, we can take care of the taste issues, but the lingering concern from somebody like myself and many others in the industry is: can we prove to the public that the residual pharmaceuticals are coming out of their waste water prior to being used as drinking water?