With water supplies getting to critical levels in quite a few places in Australia talk of recycled sewage water being used to top up the dams is often mentioned. The Queensland Premier this week has said that it will happen whether they like it or not.

It is said that the recycled water is cleaner than the ordinary tap water now and that it can be used in medical ways such as kidney dialysis but many people are still hesitant.

Would you drink it or does the thought turn you off?

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Some fortunate communities have the luxury of well or spring water, but 'ordinary' tap water in most parts of the world has undergone a complex clean-up before it reaches our taps. If we drank it before the various impurities, including chemicals and detritus, were removed, we'd probably go down en-masse with serious stomach upsets.
It wouldn't bother me in the slightest to drink re-cycled water, especially if the alternative was drought and desertification.
I toured Western Australia a few years ago, and met forestry experts who told me of serious die back in various tree species, due to lowered water tables, which in turn increased the salinity of the upper soils.

Well if it was mandatory for all houses to have rainwater tanks, that'd help . . . but as Premier 'Hollywood' Beattie is almost a law unto himself here in Queensland (and I used to work for the man, so I know what he is like) he will virtually do what he likes no matter (seemingly) what the population of the entire State thinks or otherwise (aka the Referendum held last year in Toowoomba which knocked back using treated effluent as drinking water). Noted however that the US has been doing the same thing for years and it doesn't seem to have hurt them. Further, if the Government had bothered in the past to build dams in areas where it did actually receive a decent rainfall, that would have made a difference too . . . desalination has been mooted for years and if the likes of the Queensland Government had put funding into same, I don't think we'd be in such a critical state here . . . but 'Hollywood' had to have his private plane, his Ministers have to receive their yearly benefits 'up front' (and not pay them back if they become political pariahs and are dumped by 'Hollywood') etc, etc, etc. It's inevitable that on the second driest continent on earth we really do need to not only conserve the water we have (and it still aggrieves me that 'city' folk have NO idea about true water conservation) but find alternative means to 'generate' safe drinking water . . . and as Aramis noted above, Western Australia has had a salt problem for years, something that will not improve 'overnight', no matter how much treated effluent they pump into that particular state.

Hmm, well I guess we don't really have a choice. Brisbane brought it on themselves. When we (Gold Coast) were in drought, we put in all the water saving policies and saved tonnes of water, while Brisbane didn't join us. Our dam is actually full to the point of over-flowing when it rains. The really sad bit is now we can't go back to 'normal' conditions because Brisbane has restrictions so we have to. It blows. As to drinking our recycled waste water - I'm not too concerned. It's pretty much been revealled that it'll be cleaner than what we have now, plus my house has it's own water filter system. What ever they do though, they shouldn't start treating sea water in desalinsation plants. It's uses 4 times as much power as recycling what we've already used, plus the excess salt amounts would ruin what ever ecosystem they end up in.

Woah that was long, my fingers hurt

I can't spell

Shame

I wont be drinking recycled sewerage. No matter how scientifically I view recycled H2O it`s still toilet water to me. I`m in the process of researching rain water tanks and would spend thousands to not drink toilet water.

I predict that the bottled mineral and spring water companies are going to make a killing when they bring this to Sydney, time to invest I reckon.

We have a desalination plant here in Jersey, it is pretty old and is oil-fired. It costs a fortune to run and it only fired up when essential.

I think I would drink recycled H2O if I HAD to but not by choice. There must be other alternatives!

Drink recyled water? Sure, I would. Isn't water something that can't be made or manufactured? What water is on the planet has been on the planet since day one in some form or another. What you are drinking now, before it was cleaned and filtered, may have been sewage 5, 20, 50, 100, or 1,000 years ago. Even water that comes from an underground spring and is supposedly fresh had to come from somewhere. For as many years as this planet has been inhabited, I can't believe that there is such a thing as "new" water that has never been used.

They say we pay lots more per gallon for water than we do for petrol/gasoline. The gas companies make more profit on that at the service station than they do on petrol.

Many countries with low rainfall have desalinisation plants installed on the cooling water outlets of power stations. These make use of the waste heat contained within the cooling water at it's outlet, which would otherwise be returned to the sea as purely wasted energy.
The cooling water vapour mixes with sea water, and is then condensed into pure water. Desalinisation plants run on this principle are far more energy efficient than desalisation plants which are not associated with a power station.

Sounds like a great idea but we just prefer to stick our head in the sand and pretend it's not happening until it's very close to being too late.

Roos, would you use recycled water for washing bodies and clothes? if not have you thought about putting a bore in? I'm a big believer that every house should have a rainwater tank but it wouldn't be the totally trustworthy supply you'd get from a small hole in the corner of your backyard.

I don't know the laws in NSW, but you cannot just put down a bore up here . . . you need ALL sorts of approvals, as we looked at that a few years ago and what the council wanted for the privilege was totally outrageous (in a semi rural area too, mind you) . . . it may have changed now, I don't know . . . but yeah, the 'head in the sand' ploy has been ongoing for years in Queensland, or maybe it's head up the . . . erm, btw, I'm NOT a Peanut Picker by birth . . .

Perhaps it's different from shire to shire or for what it is used for? For us, on a property, you get the hole drilled, get the map of it signed by who dug it and send it to water rescources .. no cost in registering and no local council invovled.

I just noticed when visiting my brother a couple months ago in Sydney that a few ordinary houses had signs up along the lines of 'garden/lawns watered by bore' and thought it would be the next fad. Although I did wonder how many of them had just the sign and no bore ...

Water tanks are a good idea, BUT, don't drink the water if you have a Colorbond roof, or a tiled roof with lead flashing. Current water tanks on the market use a system that fills the tank from mains supply when the tank is not filled by rainwater, so if it does'nt rain.....??? Recycled water has to be used whether we like it or not, and it is incorrect to name it recycled sewage.
Most of our water usage is for showers/baths, dishwashing and clothes washing and the WC. The water in a dam contains a large amount of 'detrius', so before it comes to us it runs through a 'cycle' of filtering and cleansing, and then some chemicals are added, (tapwater where I live on the Gold Coast tastes like chlorinated pool water, and leaves a dark brown stain on the inside of our white electric kettle) so we drink bottled water.The cost is negative when one considers that we have to pay for mains supply anyway.
As for the'yuck' factor in recycled water, what about the'yuck' factor in manufactured food and drinks, and fruit and vegetable production?

What's the problem with Colorbond? hadn't heard that one. (Hi and welcome to FT! )

I'm no expert, but on the subject of boreholes in Australia, I visited some cave systems in Western Australia a few years ago. The rangers conducting these tours, told us that less than 20 years ago, the caves had rivers flowing through them, but now these had disappeared due to the water table being lowered due to excessive domestic and industrial water extraction. This probably isn't the whole cause of the problem, as reduced annual rainfall must also be a major factor, but it is still serious.
If boreholes were used solely for drinking and domestic water, the extraction might be reasonable, but when many thousands of people want to fill their personal swimming pools, water their lawns, wash their cars every other day, etc, etc, then the problem will continue to get worse.
Industrial use of water is also enormous, and there is no reason whatever why such water resource should not come from re-cycled sources.

Clarasue I know I`m going to look pedantic here, but I can live with it.

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I can't believe that there is such a thing as "new" water that has never been used.

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I believe that by never been used you are saying never been use by humans. There have been humans in their current form for about 200,000 years I believe, the good news for those that don`t wish to drink recycled water is that the oldest ice found to date is 900,000 years old.

Hehe Engadine, as attractive as that sounds being a "Shire" lad through and through I would find it very difficult to leave here.

Copago I would certainly use recycled water for clothes, and for showering if I had to, but just not for drinking under any circumstances ( I view this water as I view Polonium, not harmful unless ingested). I would like to have a bore installed but the fact is I live on top of a sandstone hill and would have to bore down many dozens of metres.

Welcome to the forums Jakdelad. The word "incorrect" certainly depends on your views of what percentage of fecal matter in waste water makes it sewerage. I have a three year old that uses our toilet (sometimes) and I also use the toilet, to some her waste might be viewed as not being sewerage simply because of the smaller amount but to me there is not enough difference to not still call it sewerage, after all that`s what a WC is for. I would have to use the toilet once then shower/bath, dishwash and clothes wash about 100 times before the resulting water could be called something other than sewerage. To me to call it otherwise sounds to me like some sort of marketing ploy ( to remove the "yuck" factor)thought up by a "Yes Minister" type public servant. I also would certainly be interested in why colourbond is not so great as a runoff material for drinking water as I`m currently building a cubbyhouse for my little girl and was thinking of running the water from the colourbond roof to a small 700 litre tank.

Aramis I was just thinking yesterday that industry should be required by law to use recycled sewerage.

Someone should invent a way to recycle bath water and washing machine (rinse) water to be used on gardens. Imagine how much water could be saved by that alone.

There already is, Lady It's becoming quite popular here with so many places being on water restrictions.

http://www.sydneywater.com.au/SavingWater/GreyWater/

http://www.abc.net.au/gardening/stories/s1366316.htm

When you stop and think that water is a non-renewable resource, and the water supply that we use is the same one that was used by the dinosaurs, then all water is really recycled - isn't it!

That's what I was trying to say, skunkee. I also got to thinking about it later, but, rainwater, while it is used by many as a source of drinking water, is also recycled by nature. I wonder how come it smells and tastes good. What kind of cycle does it go through up in the atmosphere that purifies it? Just rambling thoughts....