You will huddle, shivering, in the dark and eat turnips – and drink shit – and be happy.
British people need to be “less squeamish” about drinking water derived from sewage, the boss of the Environment Agency has said.
Writing in the Sunday Times, Sir James Bevan outlined measures the government, water companies and ordinary people should be taking to avoid severe droughts.
He said: “Part of the solution will be to reprocess the water that results from sewage treatment and turn it back into drinking water – perfectly safe and healthy, but not something many people fancy.”
Because building more reservoirs would upset Gaia of course.
Interesting how it changes, isn’t it? It’s terrible to have to swim in shit but we’ll be forced to drink it.
“perfectly safe and healthy”: well, as long as the processing plant is well designed, properly maintained, and competently operated.
What’s the experience with this in other parts of the world?
I think I’ll pass.
Small things make a big difference. Take showers, not baths. Cram the dishwasher or washing machine and only run it when it’s full. Turn off the tap when brushing your teeth. Fix leaks: many are in our own homes, not water company pipes. Get a water meter: your company will install one free. Outside the house, get a water butt: plants prefer rainwater. Use a watering can, not a hose, and don’t water the grass – it doesn’t need it.
C’mere.
That’s how we Saffers have been doing things since whenever and (in the well-run municipalities anyway) our drinking water is world-standard. What’s so special about supposedly pristine river water? May I remind you of what W.C.Fields said.
@dearieme
Echoing what Southerner says. Windhoek has been recycling waste water for 50 years: https://www.veolia.com/en/newsroom/news/drinking-water-recycling-wastewater-windhoek-namibia
Probably why Windhoek lager tastes better than that cat piss Castle lager.
I wonder if Sir James Bevan will be taking his own advice?
Re SA water, everyone in PE drinks bottled water.
In London (and most large cities) tap water has passed through several sets of kidneys since it first fell as rain. And, for that matter, all water on earth has passed through millions of guts. The question is how it has been treated prior to drinking.
Or, we could build a few reservoirs, force the water companies to fix some leaks and ‘Sir’ James can get in the sea.
I’ve been so SA a few times. Drunk plenty of Windhoek but not the tap water.
Part of the solution will be to reprocess the water that results from sewage treatment . . .
The same companies whose sewage treatment consists of letting it out raw into rivers and the sea will carefully process your drinking water to be mountain fresh (and then leak half of it away).
As Chris Miller alludes to, the ‘clean’ water that comes out of a tap in the UK has been through a few people (9?) before it gets to you. And as our host has pointed out, the c*nts bemoaning the lack of water / lack of facilities to treat water / lack of gas / lack of (insert item in short supply de jour of your choice) have been the ones shouting the loudest and preventing the building of said facilities for decades. I once had the pleasure of spending an afternoon at Beckton Sewage Farm. “I guess you get used to the smell after you’ve been here a while” I asked the worker. “Mate, i’ve been here 25 years and you never get used to it” came the reply.
Ed Davey, c*nt of the day “I’m proud that I stopped fracking in the UK”.
Fix leaks: many are in our own homes, not water company pipes.
I was wondering why I have to wade across to the front door.
Get a water meter: your company will install one free.
This may make sense if you live alone with smelly armpits amongst piles of dirty dishes (and don’t have to wade to the front door), but if you’re a normal family with normal human needs that likes to play in a nice garden together and is wondering what that torrent of water coming down the stairs is all about, then stick to estimated bills – you’ll save an absolute fortune.
. . . and don’t water the grass – it doesn’t need it.
Mine doesn’t; it’s fucking dead. Apart from around the front door for some reason.
To be fair, the local sewage outlet to the Chelmer is upstream of the inlet to the waterworks, hence some recycling is happening and has been for at least forty years, with no problems. However we still need local reservoirs, and sometimes water from other areas.
Bevan heads up one of the most dysfunctional NDPBs – he recycles air as flatulence.
A more crooked, incompetent and self regarding bunch would be difficult to find – although there is a strong field of runners in the public sector.
Bevan’s crew are bent and thumbing their collective noses at Parliament and the public (PDF of letter from PACAC committee asking why the EA is trying to evade its responsibilities to the Ombudsman)
PJF – my grass grows like a mad bastard whenever I turn my head for a moment. Watering isn’t an issue, mowing the bloody stuff is. I’m also getting tired of passive aggressive letters from my neighbour about the hedges. I have sometimes thought dark thoughts about the compost pile, but anyway.
With respect to our Saffer correspondents, we don’t want to drink pisswater and the fact that they do this in the home of routine power cuts and necklacing doesn’t spark joy.
I agree with the esteemed Bloke who recently pointed out it’s 2022 and we should be tooling around in flying Deloreans by now. We absolutely should not be debating eating insects, not showering, and washing the crunchy Daddy Long Legses down with a warm drink of reconstituted wee.
Who stole the Buck Rodgers future we were promised, and where does the cunt live? I have a compost pile, and I’m not afraid to use it.
@Dearieme The dutch plants turn out stuff that’s as clean as or cleaner than surface water.
Not potable yet, but good enough to have frogs ans salamanders happily live in it. ( they’re used as an indicator of Invisible Nasties that the normal process doesn’t cope with..)
Defintely good enough to be pumped into the coastal dune reservoirs to combat salination and, after fish/birds having shat in it and about 250 meters of sand filter, pumped up again to be turned into the water most of North Holland uses.
So yeah…. it gets done. With a bit of help from mother Nature..
British people need to be “less squeamish” about drinking water derived from sewage,
I’ve never been so glad I’m no longer British.
Big fuss about nothing: it’s been happening in London for years (decades in fact).
Typical furore stirred up by people who know nothing about how anything actually works. Arts graduates, in other words.
building reservoirs more likely to upset Nimby’s I’d have thought… People just hate change.
“Fix leaks: many are in our own homes”
Not in my home there bloody well aren’t. I had a water meter fitted several years ago, and keep a regular check on the readings, along with my gas & electricity usage. I also collect rainwater, and use it to flush the loo. As a result my consumption is only a little more than half the “Average” per person amount. Sir James Bevan can stick his advice where the sun don’t shine…
Back in the day, in Somerset (sandstone, mostly), the water company connected the neighbours to mains drainage (free) but not to mains supply (not free). Neighbours got rid of the septic tank and then wondered why their well had dried up…
The British should lose the habit of using expensively processed drinking water for flushing turds down the lavvy. In HK we used a seperate seawater intake for flushing, in the UK I have a rainwater collection tank in the roof.
In HK we used a seperate seawater intake for flushing
Which, until not that long ago, went straight back into the harbour.
Because setting up a second water main system and replumbing every house will be cost free, of course.
I can’t see how building plants to treat waste water to bring it to potable standards, which presumably will involve chemicals and energy use, is more green than allowing nature to provide reasonably pure water by evaporating it then dropping it into big pools built to catch it…
jgh:In HK we used a seperate seawater intake for flushing
Merchant ships always used seawater for flushing straight back into the sea, but since the introduction of the MARPOL 4 regs in 2003 made this illegal, and onboard sewage treatment plants necessary, ships now use fresh water in the sanitation systems. This is mainly because the sewage treatment plants don’t work too well with salt water, but also because fresh water doesn’t corrode the pipework like seawater. I’m reliably informed by many ships’ engineers that the discharge from the treatment plant is good enough to drink, although I’ve never seen one demonstrate it. They generally like their drinking water produced in a brewery.
Despite Tims frequent posts on the “Gweedy Utility Companies” being govt subcontractors, it seems as if whinging about them is yet another self resurrecting piece of nonsense that needs more assisted inhumation.
https://www.taxpayersalliance.com/renationalisation_of_water_industry_won_t_wash_away_problems
@ Addolff
Chris said “in London” – my drinking water has been through 1,000 ft of chalk filter before it gets to me, so it’s fit for me to drink but we collect rainwater for the flowers in the garden (which probably wouldn’t worry about sewage, but some of them hate chalk).
There is more than enough rainwater, even in a “drought” year for everyone to have enough to drink but there aren’t enough reservoirs and there’s too much waste.