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。
“美國在線新聞網”1日報道稱，美國科技網站“趣味科學”網執行總編羅伯特-羅伊-布瑞特稱，總有一天，數百萬美國人將會以自己的尿液作為水源。
布瑞特在該網站發表的一篇評論中寫道，由于美國西部大旱即將來臨，許多人會以被凈化的污水為飲用水，而這些污水就包括人類的尿液。“現在有太多人類居住地沒有干凈水了，”布瑞特寫道。
布瑞特以菲尼克斯市為例，稱該地區需要從遙遠的水庫調水，包括遠在230英里(約合370公里)以外的密德湖。而在美國西南地區，像菲尼克斯這樣的城鎮很快就會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水。
據報道，奧蘭治縣采用了非常“高效的污水處理”技術，經過層層過濾和凈化過程，最后的水質超過了多數飲用水的標準。然后，這些水會流入蓄水層，和自然水混合在一起，并最終從水龍頭流出。整個過程只需45分鐘。
據悉，這項名為“地下水補給系統”的工程于2008年1月份啟動，目前每天可將9600萬加侖(約合3.6億升)的廢水轉化為7000萬加侖(約合2.6億升)循環水。布瑞特稱：“(奧蘭治縣)有的人已經喝上尿液提純的水，而自己卻不知情。”
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