ClownLove, I've never seen you on these boards before, but talking about people like that won't get you a lot of respect and certainly none from me.
I think you should first of all bear in mind the principle that ignorance is not an excuse to complain about something, especially not on such a grand scale.
The earth is 70% water or thereabouts, but have you ever tried drinking sea water? Well in case you didn't know; seawater is full of salt and drinking it will make you very ill and can even kill you. So why can't they just take the salt out? Because the process of getting the salt out of salt water is very energy consuming and expensive. It is highly doubtful that such a scheme would be viable even with an unlimited budget.
In actual fact all water is recycled, even the stuff that comes out of springs. In short this is because water evaporates into clouds which then rain onto mountains or permeable rock forming rivers or underground natural reservoirs from which we can draw a water supply. By the time the water has been recycled it certainly won't have "excrement" in it. It may contain a few harmless, or even healthy minerals that were once a part of someone's excrement, but it has been broken down to such an extent it could have come from anywhere.
So you've *heard* that recycled sewage plants are VERY prone to malfunctioning? Who from? A sewage recycling expert? Or a bloke down the pub? Seriously try to be sceptical about what people say, just because they state something as fact doesn't mean they have a clue what they are talking about. Use your common sense; you said they use water recycling in major cities, and when was the last time you heard of a cholera epidemic in western civilisation? If something does go wrong and the water isn't filtered correctly, they don't just pump it anyway and hope for the best. If something goes wrong, the people running the plant will know about and hence be able to do something about it, so there is really nothing to be worried about concerning the hygiene of the water.
If the hygiene doesn't concern you and you just "don't want to drink water that's touched other peoples poo" then you should really revise your attitude. It's a simplistic and ignorant view that borders on superstitious.
Mr. James- "What about the pipes pumping any water into your home? They might contain blood, piss and bits of sick."
That made me laugh so hard. Why would there be blood, piss or sick in the ingoing water pipes?!? You'd have to dig up the ground and drill a hole in the pipe... all so you can hurl into someones water supply!!
Stuckboy
JC Denton: "I know your UNATCO killphrase: Laputan Machine."
Gunther Hermann: "I - am - not - a - machi --"
JC Denton: "Sticks and stones..."
Dudes, tap water (Recycled or not, and there use to be a recycling plant nearby) is far safer than bottled water, and every report has stated this, for the UK anyway.
Bacteria levels, and more importantly heavy metal levels (in ppm, parts per million) were almost half of that of bottled water.
Might be different in other countries but I recommend drinking tap water over bottled in the UK!
Personally i dont like the Flourine levels in water either, or the stuff they add to make it taste fresh - it was some salt of aluminnium which i cant remember now. Aluminnium makes you go KErAzy!
Personally, I'm kinda wondering why desalinization is less often used than recycled water. Because there's solid objects or too much salt in the sea that'll screw the system up? Because of the thickness of waste (salt) that'll be dumped back into the sea? Because people are afraid that it'll screw up once in a dozen years, making people unknowingly consume fatal salt water? Strangely enough... the same problem applies to shit water, only difference is that shit water is cheaper to put up since the pipes are already there.
Disclaimer: Any sarcasm in my posts will not be mentioned as that would ruin the purpose. It is assumed that the reader is intelligent enough to tell the difference between what is sarcasm and what is not.
We have a natural spring in our garden (LoL I live in SPRINGhead, next to WATERhead) which pumps out drinkable water but it's not to my taste. Too much like Evian, calcium-y. Nice to know that when the world ends this summer from all the lakes drying up that we might have this spring keeping us alive for a few more weeks.
"Personally, I'm kinda wondering why desalinization is less often used than recycled water. Because there's solid objects or too much salt in the sea that'll screw the system up? Because of the thickness of waste (salt) that'll be dumped back into the sea? Because people are afraid that it'll screw up once in a dozen years, making people unknowingly consume fatal salt water?"
Read:
"The earth is 70% water or thereabouts, but have you ever tried drinking sea water? Well in case you didn't know; seawater is full of salt and drinking it will make you very ill and can even kill you. So why can't they just take the salt out? Because the process of getting the salt out of salt water is very energy consuming and expensive. It is highly doubtful that such a scheme would be viable even with an unlimited budget."
"If something does go wrong and the water isn't filtered correctly, they don't just pump it anyway and hope for the best. If something goes wrong, the people running the plant will know about and hence be able to do something about it, so there is really nothing to be worried about concerning the hygiene of the water."
Yes, I can understand our developed society discussing the advantages of bottled water over tap water and vice versa, but the developing african countries? Why do they care about water when they don't even have video games or internet?
(The above post is a joke, but feel free to take it seriously if you want to make a fool of yourself)
- Ok, you must admit that was the most creative cussing this site have ever seen -
And the process of taking crap out of crap water is cheaper than the process of taking salt out of salt water? There's a lot more salt in human waste. And if I've learned anything from chemistry classes and a father's friend who used to work in the salt industry.. taking out the salt from salt water is no more energy consuming than heavy industries like acid or steel manufacturing. Treating waste on the other hand, is almost the same process, except that there's a lower ratio of water to waste and there'd probably be a lot more bacteria filters.
There's a difference between the taste of salt water and freshwater, but it's not nearly as noticable as the difference between crap water and fresh water, not that I've even come close to trying.
Yet some countries would rather recycle sewage than plant desalinization plants.
Disclaimer: Any sarcasm in my posts will not be mentioned as that would ruin the purpose. It is assumed that the reader is intelligent enough to tell the difference between what is sarcasm and what is not.
I know I've read some stuff, like on the Wiki, saying that desalination plants are expensive to run, but I can't think why that should be the case.
If your main problem is salt, don't you just evaporate the water?
Just get a shallow pan, pop a pane of glass at an angle over the top, leave it in the sun, and voila: The water evaporates, leaving the salt in the pan, condenses on the glass, rolls down as drips and plops into a separate bowl.
Then just, like, pop a grill on the end of the ocean pipes so you don't suck in penguins and junk.