Toilet Water, Anyone

I was going through the motions of starting my day when I came across this article. Seems Fido's been doing all along what we should be doing now - drinking sewage water. No, I'm not saying that we should be drinking out of the toilet bowl but it's more like the principle of it. The article said that California has built this facility that puts 'super treated' water back into the lake so that the water will filter down into the aquifer. The water is then pumped out and treated again before it goes into our taps. Obviously, there's a lot of opposition to the plan. The idea of 'sewage water' going into their taps is the 'yuck' factor. Even if it has gone through a lot of filtering and treatments, people still think it's 'dirty'.

But you've seen a dog drink straight out of the toilet bowl and nothing went wrong with him. Does he know something we don't? As experts tell it, some treated sewage water are better than those that come from the aquifer. One sampling even showed concentrations of an anti-anxiety drug present in the water being treated for use in our homes. The thing is, if sewage water has been filtered, treated and purified according to human health safety standards, then it must be safe to drink. This is probably what we can learn from our pets.

Drinking water is fast becoming an environmental issue. Unchecked development and population growth will continue to put pressure on any area's ability to adequately provide safe drinking water. As the article mentioned there's a sewage water treatment facility in Africa where output is directly used by the communities there for their daily drinking water needs. What is it going to take to make us realize that treated sewage water is safe enough to drink? We've been feeding our dogs the food we eat and the beverage we drink thinking that what's good enough for us is good for pets. Maybe Fido's telling us that what's good enough for him is good enough for us too?

Reference: http://www.slate.com/id/2182758/