Effluent in our drinking water – We don’t like it – they want us to drink it
Australia is facing worsening drought situation this coming summer. After a number of consecutive years with very little winter rain, the water supplies across Victoria and the rest of the nation are quickly drying up. Recently Queensland’s water storage situation hit crisis point with political debate as to whether to recycle sewerage waste for the drinking supply. The people of Australia sent a strong ‘NO’ message to the leaders proposing the idea.
Melbourne Water
Apparently a part of Melbourne’s drinking water includes recycled effluent and has done so for quite some time. Go here to read about it from this news article in The Age Newspaper on 25th September 2007 Why put effluent into our water supply…why not use it for irrigating or watering a pine plantation or something?
The drought continues lets us pray….for rain
Today was the hottest October day on record for Melbourne reaching 36*c, giving an indication of the extremly hot summer coming. The continued drought is going to seriously affect farmers this year; many need October rains to get the summer crops underway. Some farmers already have crop failures after investing $100s per acre sowing and fertilising the land. Some farmers are selling their livestock at a 95% loss because there is nothing growing for the stock to graze on. It truly is a natural disaster for the farmers and this country.
Slogans
I remember when I was younger the slogan on car number plates was ‘Victoria – the garden state’, I think just how ironic that slogan has now become. With ever tightening water restrictions, much of our gardens are dead or dying. I stopped watering my ferns this year; I have given up on them and won’t be wasting any more water trying to save them. I feel guilty watering the garden when the township of Horsham has run out of water all together.
Maybe we should come up with couple of new slogans for Victoria. Like:
- Victoria – The brown state
- Victoria – The wasteful state
- Victoria – Effluent, we drink it
- Victoria – All dried up
Or maybe you have a good state slogan for Melbourne Victoria, send it to us on the form below. We may publish a select few in a future edition of the ‘Rubbish Removal News’.
Water Tanks good or bad?
Can you believe that it wasn’t that long ago when it was illegal to attach a water tank to your house to collect rainwater? The government did not want us to take business and profit away from the water authority. Now we receive rebates and offers from the government for installing water saving devices.
I believe that it should go further, legislate all new houses built to be fitted with water tank or minimal grey water systems.
All existing houses should have the option to be fitted with water tank at 50 / 50 of the cost to fit and install subsidised by the government. Sounds simple to me.
Water the true energy source
Maybe one day, water will be used to replace oil. I often wonder why scientists are not researching new technologies to replace fossil fuels with water fuels. We have the Internet, we have been to the moon; yet, we still drive around using the ‘internal combustion engine’! Maybe we should go back to using the steam engine, as they are both competing technologies from the nineteenth century.
From High School chemistry we know that water is made up of H 2 O, when you split the molecule into a gas you get Hydrogen and Oxygen ready to burn. When you burn this fuel you get heat and water as the waste product. Sounds like the perfect equation to me, but what would I know. I just remove rubbish for a living.
I wonder how valuable water would will be if it used as the replacement for oil throughout the world.
Water for life
Water is essential for life and for the future of the world, its time to stop treating water like waste and think creatively about its uses. Water use is critical to life and action needs to be taken by everyone to save as much as possible. A conscious decision to be responsible with water is a great start.