Background Info:
Recent events and news about water scarcity got me thinking about this. So the question is essentially the title. Or am I missing something?
If you live anywhere that uses a sewer system rather than septic tanks, isn’t it already doing that?
In my area, the water company pulls in from the river, filters and processes it, and pipes it out to homes. It gets used in the homes, discharged into the sewer to a treatment plant, treated, and then pumped back into the river.
Even if your water company’s intake is before the sewage treatment plant, the next town’s intake is downstream. So if you’re not drinking your neighbor’s processed toilet water, you’re drinking that of the town upstream.
Is getting mixed with river water simply enough to “dilute” the ick-factor here, or is there something I’m missing?
Funny you mention that.
Our city’s treatment plant was a frequent field trip destination. I think I went 3 times (two different class trips, and once again with my engineering club). All 3 times, the plant manager gave the tour and concluded it by drinking a glass of water out of the output pipe to show how clean the water was that they were putting back into the river. (Supposedly, anyway).
As proud as he was for what they did there and of the standards they had, I’m going to give him the benefit of doubt that it was the actual effluent from the plant he was drinking. He always seemed fine and never hesitated to down a glass of it.
So yeah, like you said, people probably haven’t been exposed to that to know how clean the water that comes out of treatment plants usually is.
The dude who used to run the local plant (since retired and moved away, we’ve lost touch) was a friend. He’d bring the church youth group out for tours and I helped run the group, so I tagged along because hey, small town it’s something to do. I mean the local spring is better, but are we really comparing filet mignon and cube steak?