Making Drinking Water From Sewage

Sure, drinking toilet water *sounds* gross, but with the right cleaning methods we can turn the dirtiest water you can think of back into clean, safe, refreshing drinking water. In this video we’ll walk through how humans have cleaned water over centuries, and how we’ve managed to get so good at it that we can turn wastewater into a refreshing drink again! Toilet to tap is possible… it just needs a good rebrand!

#earthday #waterfiltration #drinkingwater

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Credits:
Executive Producers:
Hilary Hudson

Producers:
Elaine Seward
Andrew Sobey
Darren Weaver

Writer/Host:
George Zaidan

Scientific Consultants:
Michelle Boucher, PhD
John Dorsey (LMU)
Brianne Raccor, PhD

Executive in Charge for PBS: Maribel Lopez
Associate Director of Programming for PBS: Niki Walker

Reactions is a production of the American Chemical Society.
© 2022 American Chemical Society. All rights reserved.

[ACSReactions]

Toilet to tap isn’t just happening down here on earth: astronauts on the ISS recycle their wastewater too. Launching all of the water that astronauts would need to drink on rockets would take up way too much space and be way too expensive, so instead they clean what they’ve got! And they’re not just cleaning their pee: the closed loop system captures sweat and moisture from their breath too! If it’s good enough for the astronauts, it’s good enough for me!

[kurtcobain]

Fascinating. I am glad to see someone talk about water pollution. It's sad it hardly gets any attention considering you come into contact with water everyday. Birth control, micro-plastics, and lead are common contaminants that can severely harm our drinking water. Great work!!

[Spino]

We drink water that has been circling around the world for a billion of years, they went through a lot of process, from digestion to rainwater to mud and evaporate, and will become rainwater again.

[JH-uxre]

I’m a freshman of physics caring about our environment. Love to hear this!

[joemc]

Here in Florida reclaimed water is reused for landscaping. Most writing says not to use it on edible vegetables, so how much more of a process does florida have to do to make this so you can put it on your vegetable garden it sounds really close maybe the rich people don’t want that to happen because a lot of this water is used on their golf course at $.10 1000 gallons.

[morgan]

at the beginning of the video so maybe it’s mentioned later, but for coastal places, using clean but salty water for toilets and maybe other stuff seems like it could reduce the usage of freshwater. also not sure how well it would work for shower water but also could work for that

[ghostagent]

Chances are that I have already drank much of these reuse water but I just don't know it because the government never mentioned it.

[mikegenco]

Very good but consider discusión of extended aeration for small users into a constructed wetlands small pond and design to assure plug flow and then pull water from the end to treat for drinking using conventional sedimentation and rapid sand filtration. Micro plastic problems won't exist if not allowed in the system. Errosion of plastic pipes is unlikely if velocity is low and the water is stabilized with line to form a protective layer. Use carbon caps on the rapid sand filters or carbon column filters . Daily flows from 1 to 10 houses are so low that the water and wastewater processes would each fit in 16 square feet. Use arduino based controls. Sequential batch reactor design is another option. Good video.

[ericvilas]

This is some really cool stuff, but it leaves me wondering: isn't there a point where you're basically putting in the same amount of effort as you'd need to turn seawater drinkable?

[Yotrek]

Iirc, the founder of US Filter said 30 years ago, we have the technology to create a closed loop system from the toilet to the kitchen sink. We’re just not psychologically ready for it.

[santiagomakoszay]

Another interesting question: what happens with all the different wastes filtered throughout the process? I.e. where do the poop and microplastics go to after they’ve been filtered?

[lesterma]

This is not about waste water usage it’s about charging money for free god given water!

[coryschlegel]

You don't get charcoal burning wood at high temp. Thats white Ashe. You get char from low heat.

[jriceblue]

Cool necklace.

...though I'm worried that if I wore one for too long I'd get the shakes.

[TT-chemical.engineering]

well... the water in the oceans and rivers are the toilet water for fish, whales and microorganisms

[XSpImmaLion]

No problems with drinking treated toilet water here... all water is recycled one way or another anyways. xD
Plus, at the rate we're going, sad as it may be, we're introducing so much junk in the system that natural processes can't handle it anymore, so we really need artificial filtration methods for it be safe to drink one way or another.
If I understand it correctly, I think the way we're going, at least for some regions in the world, it's also either this, or desalination. I think desalination costs more, it's more energy intensive, plus you end up generating brine and extra waste.... so it's preferable to extend water treatment to the point of it being potable instead, as this already needs to be done one way or another.

[dclaet]

It's the price we pay for over population.

[dwaynezilla]

Lookin forward to that okra-tamarind-microplastic chutney

[dynlenoir]

Unrelated; is that pendant the chemical structure for caffeine?
Great vid! 👍

[TheMomovo]

By the way

US toilets flush sooo much water I was amazed coming from central/eastern Europe