The Sanctuary

Nature => Green Planet => Topic started by: -SpectraL on November 19, 2014, 03:09:49 pm

Title: "Toilet To Tap" Coming to California
Post by: -SpectraL on November 19, 2014, 03:09:49 pm

I can see somewhat of a parallel here to the Soylent Green scenario...


Acknowledging California's parched new reality, the city of San Diego has embraced a once-toxic idea: turning sewer water into drinking water.

The City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to advance a $2.5-billion plan to recycle wastewater, the latest example of how California cities are looking for new supplies amid a severe drought.

Each of the nine council members effusively praised the effort before the vote as a way to make San Diego less dependent on imported water and insulated from drought.

"We're at the end of the pipeline," said Councilman Scott Sherman. "We have a real problem getting water down here."

Such recycling, called toilet-to-tap by critics, has suffered an image problem that industry insiders call "the yuck factor."

San Diego, a city of 1.4 million people that imports 85 percent of its water from the Colorado River and Northern California, has slowly warmed to the idea. A 2012 survey by the San Diego County Water Authority showed that nearly three of four residents favored turning wastewater into drinking water, a major shift from one of four in a 2005 survey.

"The drought puts a finer point on why this is so necessary," Mayor Kevin Faulconer said. "Droughts are unfortunately a way of life in California, so we have to be prepared. This helps us to control our own destiny."

The plan calls to initially recycle 15 million gallons by 2023 and 83 million gallons a day by 2035, about one-third of the city's water supply. It enjoys broad support from business groups and environmental advocates.

The Orange County Water District, which serves 2.4 million people in California, plans to boost production of recycled water next year from 70 million gallons to 100 million gallons a day. It has reused wastewater for drinking since 2008 through treatment that includes sending water through ground basins.

The Santa Clara Valley Water District, which serves 1.8 million people in the San Francisco Bay area, decided in September to pursue construction of facilities that it says could lead to turning wastewater into drinking water for Sunnyvale and western Santa Clara County.

Still, it remains rare to turn sewage to drinking water. The WateReuse Association, a group of agencies behind the efforts, counts only 10 projects nationwide, including El Paso, Texas, and Fairfax County, Virginia. Two Texas cities, Wichita Falls and Big Spring, started projects within the past two years.

On Tuesday, the San Diego council ratified an agreement between the mayor and four environmental groups - San Diego Coastkeeper, Surfrider Foundation, Coastal Environmental Rights Foundation and San Diego Audubon Society - to ask the Environmental Protection Agency for another reprieve and to commit to the recycled wastewater plan. Unlike Orange County, San Diego plans to send water through a reservoir because it lacks groundwater basins.

Richard Nagel, general manger of the West Basin Municipal Water District, which serves about 900,000 people in Southern California, said he has fielded inquiries from about a half-dozen agencies lately who are interested in recycling wastewater. His agency began in 1995 in response to an earlier drought.

"It's the investment you make for a locally produced, drought-proof water supply," he said.





source: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=922_1416407244

Title: Re: "Toilet To Tap" Coming to California
Post by: ngalo1983 on November 19, 2014, 03:16:28 pm
I use to always tell kids from San Diego to eat shit but this is just taking it to far....
Title: Re: "Toilet To Tap" Coming to California
Post by: HampTheToker on November 19, 2014, 03:20:07 pm
*Facepalm*



Soylent green???





Really¿¿¿
Title: Re: "Toilet To Tap" Coming to California
Post by: -SpectraL on November 19, 2014, 03:29:21 pm

How the hell do you get AIDS, Hepatitis, Gonorrhea and the Rotavirus out of waste water anyways??
Title: Re: "Toilet To Tap" Coming to California
Post by: Prometheus on November 19, 2014, 04:29:14 pm
Chlorine, filters, ultra-violet light, boiling, etc...
Title: Re: "Toilet To Tap" Coming to California
Post by: -SpectraL on November 19, 2014, 04:32:18 pm
Chlorine, filters, ultra-violet light, boiling, etc...

Chlorine, boiling and UV kills HIV? Really??
Title: Re: "Toilet To Tap" Coming to California
Post by: Slave of the Beast on November 19, 2014, 05:35:37 pm
Just think, that glass of nice cool water out of your tap could've come fresh from Zek's bladder. Still, look on the bright side, all that second-hand oestrogen will probably take the edge of any impending male-pattern baldness. He's probably on birth control pills too (it's best not to ask) so you'll likely be chugging on ethinyl estradiol (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethinylestradiol) as well. Yum Yum. Get it down you son. It'll put hairs on your ch... oh, no... it won't.

I jest of course. Reverse osmosis and UV light treatment should filter out unwanted chemicals and destroy pathogens in reclaimed water. Or at the very least reduce their occurence down to 'acceptable' levels, i.e. no worse than water from more traditional sources. Distillation would achieve the same results but this is a very expensive and energy intensive process when used on an industrial scale.
Title: Re: "Toilet To Tap" Coming to California
Post by: -SpectraL on November 19, 2014, 08:03:13 pm

What's an "acceptable level" of HIV?
Title: Re: "Toilet To Tap" Coming to California
Post by: Slave of the Beast on November 19, 2014, 08:16:53 pm
HIV is quite fragile. A combination of UV light treatment and chlorination on reverse omosis-filtered reclaimed water will destroy HIV extremely effectively; the same holds true for most human pathogens.
Title: Re: "Toilet To Tap" Coming to California
Post by: kroz on November 19, 2014, 08:25:35 pm
wow spectral, this is nothing new.. where are you from out of curiosity?
Title: Re: "Toilet To Tap" Coming to California
Post by: kroz on November 19, 2014, 08:27:45 pm
a lot of things kill hiv you're pretty much only going to get it if you smoke meth and take it up the ass and or have a poor imunestytem to begine with.
Title: Re: "Toilet To Tap" Coming to California
Post by: -SpectraL on November 19, 2014, 08:58:08 pm

What if something goes wrong with the filtration system and no one discovers it before consumption of waste water occurs?
Title: Re: "Toilet To Tap" Coming to California
Post by: ngalo1983 on November 19, 2014, 10:44:30 pm

What if something goes wrong with the filtration system and no one discovers it before consumption of waste water occurs?

California becomes a zombie.
Title: Re: "Toilet To Tap" Coming to California
Post by: Flowerz on November 20, 2014, 12:16:28 am

What if something goes wrong with the filtration system and no one discovers it before consumption of waste water occurs?

The exact same thing that would happen if the current filtration systems and sanitation methods fail. People would get sick.
Title: Re: "Toilet To Tap" Coming to California
Post by: -SpectraL on November 20, 2014, 02:20:50 am

What if something goes wrong with the filtration system and no one discovers it before consumption of waste water occurs?

The exact same thing that would happen if the current filtration systems and sanitation methods fail. People would get sick.

This is different, though. This is waste water.. human excrement, blood, piss, saliva, sweat.. everything. There's a big difference between getting sick and getting a terminal or lifelong virus. If they don't filtrate HIV and Hepatitis out of the water, such when an "accident" occurs, and you drink it, guess what? You now have HIV and Hepatitis.
Title: Re: "Toilet To Tap" Coming to California
Post by: Flowerz on November 20, 2014, 02:23:30 am

What if something goes wrong with the filtration system and no one discovers it before consumption of waste water occurs?

The exact same thing that would happen if the current filtration systems and sanitation methods fail. People would get sick.

This is different, though. This is waste water.. human excrement, blood, piss, saliva, sweat.. everything. There's a big difference between getting sick and getting a terminal or lifelong virus. If they don't filtrate HIV and Hepatitis out of the water, such when an "accident" occurs, and you drink it, guess what? You now have HIV and Hepatitis.

Yeah, accept in actuality those viruses don't survive outside of the human body nearly long enough to be carried through a sewage refinement system, all filter functionality aside.
Title: Re: "Toilet To Tap" Coming to California
Post by: aldra on November 20, 2014, 02:25:31 am
This is different, though. This is waste water.. human excrement, blood, piss, saliva, sweat.. everything. There's a big difference between getting sick and getting a terminal or lifelong virus. If they don't filtrate HIV and Hepatitis out of the water, such when an "accident" occurs, and you drink it, guess what? You now have HIV and Hepatitis.

you can generally only contract HIV from blood contact, so your average person drinking trace amounts of it (even if there were live viruses in the water) wouldn't get sick.

regardless, water sourced from rivers, lakes and oceans has animal waste and other potentially toxic or virulent material in it - aside from the level of waste that needs to be effectively removed, I don't really see the difference.


***also if you think this is anything like Soylent Green, you should probably go watch it again.
Title: Re: "Toilet To Tap" Coming to California
Post by: -SpectraL on November 20, 2014, 02:31:03 am

What if something goes wrong with the filtration system and no one discovers it before consumption of waste water occurs?

The exact same thing that would happen if the current filtration systems and sanitation methods fail. People would get sick.

This is different, though. This is waste water.. human excrement, blood, piss, saliva, sweat.. everything. There's a big difference between getting sick and getting a terminal or lifelong virus. If they don't filtrate HIV and Hepatitis out of the water, such when an "accident" occurs, and you drink it, guess what? You now have HIV and Hepatitis.

Yeah, accept in actuality those viruses don't survive outside of the human body nearly long enough to be carried through a sewage refinement system, all filter functionality aside.

"nearly long enough"

You're telling me that if I drank a few flakes from a fresh chunk of shit of a person with Hepatitis the day after the guy shit, I wouldn't get the disease?
Title: Re: "Toilet To Tap" Coming to California
Post by: Flowerz on November 20, 2014, 02:42:27 am

What if something goes wrong with the filtration system and no one discovers it before consumption of waste water occurs?

The exact same thing that would happen if the current filtration systems and sanitation methods fail. People would get sick.

This is different, though. This is waste water.. human excrement, blood, piss, saliva, sweat.. everything. There's a big difference between getting sick and getting a terminal or lifelong virus. If they don't filtrate HIV and Hepatitis out of the water, such when an "accident" occurs, and you drink it, guess what? You now have HIV and Hepatitis.

Yeah, accept in actuality those viruses don't survive outside of the human body nearly long enough to be carried through a sewage refinement system, all filter functionality aside.

"nearly long enough"

You're telling me that if I drank a few flakes from a fresh chunk of shit of a person with Hepatitis the day after the guy shit, I wouldn't get the disease?

One day after the shit hit the toilet it would still be flowing to the refinement facility. Sewage systems don't move at the speed of light. It also takes time to go through the plant, then takes more time to make its way back to your home. You could potentially catch diseases from improperly treated waste water, but hepatitis or HIV are unlikely to the point where getting struck by lightening would be of greater concern. Look up some bacterias or parasites that are resilient to the elements if you want to fear monger.
Title: Re: "Toilet To Tap" Coming to California
Post by: -SpectraL on November 20, 2014, 02:44:55 am
... Look up some bacterias or parasites that are resilient to the elements...

Wouldn't they be in the human waste water as well?

Title: Re: "Toilet To Tap" Coming to California
Post by: Flowerz on November 20, 2014, 02:48:55 am
... Look up some bacterias or parasites that are resilient to the elements...

Wouldn't they be in the human waste water as well?

Yes, they could be, that's my point. For the sake of your argument 'what if the filters fail' there are many things to be concerned about, but hepatitis and HIV are not high on that list. It should also be noted that plenty of dangerous parasites and bacteria can be found in a typical lake or river.
Title: Re: "Toilet To Tap" Coming to California
Post by: kroz on November 20, 2014, 04:25:10 am
^^^ you obviously have studied very little about bio-chemistry. hiv dies off very easily
Title: Re: "Toilet To Tap" Coming to California
Post by: kroz on November 20, 2014, 04:26:04 am
^^^ you obviously have studied very little about bio-chemistry. hiv dies off very easily

in this thread spectral is still a fag
Title: Re: "Toilet To Tap" Coming to California
Post by: Flowerz on November 20, 2014, 05:00:49 am
^^^ you obviously have studied very little about bio-chemistry. hiv dies off very easily

Likewise to your reading ability.
Title: Re: "Toilet To Tap" Coming to California
Post by: Lanny on November 20, 2014, 05:18:52 am
Yeah spectral, you're going full tin foil over this shit (no pun intended). Under normal circumstances we drain waste water into lakes and oceans and that ends back up in the water you drink right now. Like what do you think that stuff coming out of your tap came from? Spontaneously appeared in the sky and fell to earth? Do you think no human waste ever ends up in our regular water sources (rivers and lakes)? Obviously we can render contaminated water safe to drink, if you didn't think that then you'd be an idiot to drink water right now.
Title: Re: "Toilet To Tap" Coming to California
Post by: kroz on November 20, 2014, 05:53:42 am
^^ lol... anyways I once shit off of a cliff and a fish swallowed the poop in the lake. i'm sure he's still doing fine.