Read the article from AP - As cities grow, wastewater recycling gets another look
Around the U.S., cities are increasingly warming to an idea that once induced gags: Sterilize wastewater from toilets, sinks and factories, and eventually pipe it back into homes and businesses as tap water.
“We’ve had a sea change in terms of public attitudes toward wastewater recycling,” said David Nahai, the former general manager of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.
The shifting attitudes around a concept once dismissively dubbed “toilet to tap” come as dry regions scramble for ways to increase water supplies as their populations boom and climate change intensifies droughts. Other strategies gaining traction include collecting runoff from streams and roads after storms, and stripping seawater of salt and other minerals, a process that’s still relatively rare and expensive.
Though there are still only about two dozen communities in the U.S. using some form of recycled water for drinking, that number is projected to more than double in the next 15 years, according to WateReuse (https://watereuse.org/), a group that helps cities adopt such conservation practices.