Recycled Drinking Water: Getting Past the Yuck Factor

Haley Barr                                                                                                 May 10, 2015

Chemistry E/F odd                                                                                     Mr. Ippolito

Schwartz, John. "Recycled Drinking Water: Getting Past the Yuck Factor." The New York Times 8 May 2015: n. pag. Print.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/12/science/recycled-drinking-water-getting-past-the-yuck-factor.html?ref=science

            The article “Recycled Drinking Water: Getting Past the Yuck Factor,” by John Schwartz, describes the push to use recycled water for drinking in the midst of serious droughts being faced in the U.S. Previous methods of coping with drought included conserving more water or using desalination to turn abundant sources of water, like the Pacific Ocean, into drinking water. Now, ideas of conserving water that were put aside because they were too expensive, controversial, or unpleasant are being relooked at, including recycling water that has been already used by residents. Water recycling is already used to irrigate crops or deliver water to golf courses, zoos, or farms, but “enticing people to drink recycled water, however, requires getting past what experts call the “yuck factor.” Previous efforts to encourage water reuse in the 1990s have failed, mainly because the effort was called “toilet to tap,” which many people thought was unappealing. Now, people have begun to warm up to the idea, with a special wastewater treatment plant in Orange County that puts used water through several stages of purification that leaves it “cleaner than anything that flows out of a home faucet or comes in a brand- name bottle.” The process includes microfiltration that strains out anything larger than .2 microns, including almost all suspended solids, bacteria, and protozoa, and after that, reverse osmosis is used to remove other impurities, like viruses, pharmaceuticals, and dissolved minerals. Water reuse is also being tried in other places of the country besides California without incident, such as some very dry cities in Texas.  As Marty Adams, the head of the water system for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, says, “The difference between this and 2000 is everyone wants this to happen.”

            The reuse of water for drinking has a big impact on people, especially now because of the extremely harsh drought in California and the mandatory water usage restrictions imposed last month by Governor Jerry Brown. During this current drought, Orange County just completed a $142 million expansion that will increase capacity by more than 30 percent, to 100 million gallons a day, and “at a fraction of the cost of importing water or desalinating seawater.” Filtered reused water is even cleaner than normal tap water, and is “stripped down to the H, 2, and the O.” The reuse of water allows a cheaper and cleaner way of combatting drinking water shortages in places across America. This method of obtaining clean water by reuse may be even more common in the future, and it is an important step in conservation efforts in America.

            I really enjoyed reading this article.  It was interesting to read, and informed me of a recent water conservation effort that I did not know existed. I liked how the author included lots of information about the benefits of recycled water, but also why this method of reusing water has not worked until now. I also liked the pictures the author included of the purification plants and important people working on the water reuse effort. The author could improve his article, however, by including more information about the purification process. He does write what is removed from the water during purification, but fails to mention how. Other than this, I thought the author wrote a great article that was interesting to read. I hope other states and counties follow the examples of places that have already implemented this method of reuse, as it saves money and water, one of the most valuable resources we have.