If the thought of recycled sewage water ending up in your tap doesn’t sound appetizing, you may want to skip this post. Researchers have found a way to clean even the dirtiest of water using no chemicals such as chlorine. In an effort to test this new system, they tried on the nastiest source they could muster: waste water sewage from Chicago.

And it worked! But I’m not sure the level of satisfaction is enough to get me gulping this stuff down. The article claims it killed enough microorganisms to make it safe “within acceptable standards.” Uh… and that means what, exactly?

At any rate, recycled waste water could be the answer to some urban communities drought problem. Atlanta, for example, is still reeling from a category 4 drought (the worst). So what does this mean? It could be a cleaner way to fix droughts by using nasty effluents that would otherwise end up in the sea. This whole method uses specific lighting to zap organisms that could make you sick — it even gets rid of anthrax. The technique is called “photocatalysis” and even though it’s not new, this application could be the future source of your bath water.

Will we see this any time soon? Doubt it. It would be expensive to implement, but sooner or later we may not have much choice in the issue.

Tags: waste, water, anthrax, drought, sewage, clean, urban

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