Someday, millions of Americans will be drinking their own urine, says Robert Roy Britt, managing editor of LiveScience.com。
In a recent commentary for the site, Britt said that because of imminent drought in the West, many people will have to rely on treated sewage - containing human waste - for their drinking water. "We now have too many people living in places where we don't have fresh water," Britt said。
As an example, Britt cited the Phoenix area, which gets its drinking water from a remote body of reservoirs, including Lake Mead, which sits more than 230 miles away. He suggested that Phoenix and other cities throughout the Southwest may soon go the way of Orange County, California, which does exactly what he's foretold – it recycles wastewater into tap water。
Orange County takes "highly treated" sewer water and sends it through various filtration and purification processes, until the final product exceeds the standards for most drinking water. The water is then seeped back into the aquifer, where it blends with natural water that eventually makes it to the tap. The treatment takes only about 45 minutes。
The method, called the Groundwater Replenishment System, or GWRS, went online in January 2008 and currently turns 96 million gallons of wastewater into 70 million gallons of recycled water daily. "Some people are already drinking their own pee and don't know it," said Britt, referring to the people of Orange County。
“美國(guó)在線新聞網(wǎng)”1日?qǐng)?bào)道稱，美國(guó)科技網(wǎng)站“趣味科學(xué)”網(wǎng)執(zhí)行總編羅伯特-羅伊-布瑞特稱，總有一天，數(shù)百萬(wàn)美國(guó)人將會(huì)以自己的尿液作為水源。
布瑞特在該網(wǎng)站發(fā)表的一篇評(píng)論中寫道，由于美國(guó)西部大旱即將來(lái)臨，許多人會(huì)以被凈化的污水為飲用水，而這些污水就包括人類的尿液。“現(xiàn)在有太多人類居住地沒(méi)有干凈水了，”布瑞特寫道。
布瑞特以菲尼克斯市為例，稱該地區(qū)需要從遙遠(yuǎn)的水庫(kù)調(diào)水，包括遠(yuǎn)在230英里(約合370公里)以外的密德湖。而在美國(guó)西南地區(qū)，像菲尼克斯這樣的城鎮(zhèn)很快就會(huì)走上加利福尼亞州奧蘭治縣的路子：將回收的廢水變成純凈的自來(lái)水。
據(jù)報(bào)道，奧蘭治縣采用了非常“高效的污水處理”技術(shù)，經(jīng)過(guò)層層過(guò)濾和凈化過(guò)程，最后的水質(zhì)超過(guò)了多數(shù)飲用水的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)。然后，這些水會(huì)流入蓄水層，和自然水混合在一起，并最終從水龍頭流出。整個(gè)過(guò)程只需45分鐘。
據(jù)悉，這項(xiàng)名為“地下水補(bǔ)給系統(tǒng)”的工程于2008年1月份啟動(dòng)，目前每天可將9600萬(wàn)加侖(約合3.6億升)的廢水轉(zhuǎn)化為7000萬(wàn)加侖(約合2.6億升)循環(huán)水。布瑞特稱：“(奧蘭治縣)有的人已經(jīng)喝上尿液提純的水，而自己卻不知情。”
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