General > General Technical Chat
water shortage and water purification plants
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strawberry:
is it possible to reuse waste water and not drain it in river or ocean
it is expensive to purify it as drinking water but maybe good enough as is for fields
TimFox:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reclaimed_water
bdunham7:
Yes, 'recycled' water from sewage treatment plants is used for irrigation here in California. Gotta keep those golf courses green!
NiHaoMike:
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/urine-fertiliser-growing-plants
ejeffrey:
--- Quote from: strawberry on September 20, 2022, 07:57:21 pm ---is it possible to reuse waste water and not drain it in river or ocean
it is expensive to purify it as drinking water but maybe good enough as is for fields
--- End quote ---
Yes it's possible, and yes it's a good idea. It's not even really expensive. It's not free of course, it's more expensive than pumping water out of a hole in the ground, but it's pretty cheap compared to retail residential water prices, at least anywhere you would consider this (say the western US).
We can make treated wastewater cleaner than all of our drinking water standards, although not all water treatment plants do this. It's generally not used for that because too many people think it's gross and call it "toilet to tap" -- and mean that in a bad way. So treated wastewater is usually used for landscape irrigation or ground water replenishment -- where it is then pumped back out of the ground, treated a second time, and then distributed as drinking water.
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