Are Americans Ready To Start Drinking Their Treated Toilet Water?

by Elizabeth Svoboda
From the November 2011 issue; published online October 28, 2011

http://discovermagazine.com/2011/nov/06-americans-ready-drinking-toilet-water?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DiscoverMag+%28Discover+Magazine%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

More people are now drinking treated toilet water which was tested to be clean and safe.

Summary: As Southwest Americans are in the one of the worst droughts, some communties are extracting drinking water from urine and other liquid waste. A small Texas city of Big Spring is the latest to take the risk. They announced that late next year they will begin adding 2 million gallons of recycled water daily to their drinking supply. People should know that the filtration process makes recycled wastewater as safe to drink as tap water. If toilet water is as safe as tap water, then why havent more communities bought it? Money is a problem because it is very expensive to operate the filtration process with toilet water. Another problem is just what people think about it. People hear toilet water and they automatically don't want it, but they don't know that it's as safe as tap water.

Opinion/Reflection: I think this is very interesting. I didn't know that wastewater could be cleaned completely to be used as drinking water. I'm surprised that communities have started to use toilet water as their daily drinking supply and that people have agreed to drink it. I think that it is smart for the Southwest Americans to use it since they are in major drought. Personally, I would rather just drink tap or bottled water rather than toilet water even if it has been filtered. If the only thing to drink was the filtered toilet water, then I would drink it after I now know that it is as safe as tap water.

Questions:

1. Would you rather drink tap water over the filtered toilet water even if they are both the same amount of safeness and cleanness?

2 Do you think it is gross that communties are using the filtered toilet water as their drinking supply? Why?

3. If the filtered toilet water is expensive to use, then why do you think the communities are using more of it over tap water when they are in drought?

Removing Arsenic From Water Using...Water Bottles?!?!

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2011/09/removing-arsenic-from-water-with-plastic-bottles-and-nutrition-supplements.php?campaign=th_rss Removing Arsenic From Water With...Plastic Bottles and Nurtition Supplements?! By: Jaymi Heimbuch by TreeHugger

Picture: This picture shows a water bottle, which could be used to clean water contaminated with arsenic.

Summary: You read correctly. Plastic water bottles and a nutrition supplement can be used to remove arsenic from water to make it safe to drink. How is this possible?  Pieces of plastic water, soda and other beverage bottles are coated with cysteine (an amino acid found in dietary supplements and foods). This combonation is stirred in arsenic-contaminated water. The process works like a magnet, having the cysteine bind or "magnetize" to the arsenic. Once you remove the plastic, you have drinkable water. How cool is that? Almost 100 million people in developing countries have their drinking sources contaminated with dangerously high levels of arsenic. This new way is a cheap way. In tests, the normal water with the arsenic in the water contained 20 ppm, which is TWICE the EPA standard in the US. After using the plastic bottles with the supplement, the water's arsenic contaminates was reduced down to only .2 ppb. The process is extremley easy, as well as cheap, which would allow practically anyone to clean their drinking water.

Opinion/Reflection: THIS IS THE COOLEST THING EVER! When I first saw the headline, I figured it was a super complex way that wouldn't work...but I guess it does! I think this is awesome, especailly for the people who need it in developing countries. There are 100 million people with poisoned water due to arsenic. These people have probably been drinking water from bottles, so they should have plenty around. Developing countries don't have money laying around to clean their water, so this practically free way is awesome for them. My personal connection to this could be that if we ever had our water polluted with arsenic or I was somewhere where the arsenic levels were a problem, I could clean it myself to make it drinkable.

Questions:
How could this become a problem, if any?
Do you think that this actually works/is used? Why or why not?
Do you think it is worth the time to clean the water, or should they jst get it from somewhere else?
How do you think scientists/someone came upon this?
Should other places use this that don't have "illegal" arsenic levels? Why or why not?

Water-A Hotly Contested Resource for Survival and Development

Author: johntarantino1 Date: Thursday October 6, 2011 on theenvironmentalblog.org
http://www.theenvironmentalblog.org/2011/10/water-contested-resource/
Some rights reserved on picture below by mikebaird

Picture: This picture is showing water that is streaming down rocks that could soon be scarce. This water and its easily availability could be scarce sometime in the near future.

Summary: Many People around the globe in most places believe that we should be more concerned about oil levels instead of water, but they are wrong. Fresh water is rapidly becoming more scarce than anyone realizes. There has been an estimate that half a billion and two billion people are under high water stress and is intended to increase at a rapid rate by 2025. The biggest reason for this problem is the rapid growth. It is estimated that by October 31st, our population will reah a whopping 7 billion. Due to the climate change mostly because of human impact, the water quality is suffering. Not only would we not have much water, but the water that is available is not clean enough to actually use. This could result in sickness around the world due to uncleanly water. The warmer air temperatures would melt polar ice which raises sea levels and could cause mass flooding. Note that the ice melting into the ocean is not drinkable; therefore floods would make matters much worse. There would be too much phosphurus in the water and major odor problems. It is known that one in eight people around the globe do not have acess to clear drinking water. Hopefully we can learn more on how we can prevent major climate changes and ways to quit polluting the water before our time is too late.

OPINION/REFLECTION: I am honestly not surprised that we will have problems with water availability in the future. We have learned about helping the environment but no matter how much we learn, we just will not quit progress. Humans just go go go but forget that they are affecting many other people, animals, and other organisms. No matter how much we help, there is someone out there that is still making matters worse. It seems that it is much easier to destroy than build and that is exactly what is happening here. With a low amount of water there would be competition between our own kind and it is very scary to think about. When we talk about competition in nature, we just think of wild animals or plants competing for sunlight. I bet that no one would have though we would be fighting for a resource such as water. I truly think that we are going to get much worse before anything gets any better.

QUESTIONS:
1) What problems other than what has already been said will occur due to low water availability?
2) Where do you think most of our water supply comes from? Why do you think so?
3) If you were the president, what kind of laws would you pass to preserve the environement and water supply?
4) What do you think is the major problem ocurring that is contributing to scarce water availability? Why?
5) Why do you think the media has not been covered more than other stories in the media?