{"id":5555,"date":"2012-12-13T09:34:16","date_gmt":"2012-12-13T16:34:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unrbep.org\/?p=5555"},"modified":"2012-12-13T09:34:16","modified_gmt":"2012-12-13T16:34:16","slug":"water-reduce-reuse-recycle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/water-reduce-reuse-recycle\/","title":{"rendered":"Water: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle"},"content":{"rendered":"

Source: Environmental Leader.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

The quality and availability of drinking water will decrease unless we manage our drinking water supply better.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In certain parts of the world, communities\u2019 sole source of water is water from deep wells, often many thousands of feet down.\u00a0 Almost half of the United States drinking water is groundwater.\u00a0 The Ogallala Aquifer is the sole source of water in central western part of the United States.\u00a0 An estimated 12 billion cubic meters of water is removed from the Ogallala Aquifer each year and 6 percent of the aquifer will dry up every 25 years, which leaves the residents and farmers of the Great Plains unsure about how long their water supply will last.<\/p>\n

Water from groundwater sources is usually free of chemical and microbial contamination, but often become contaminated by disposal of liquid waste, mining operations, and agricultural runoff.\u00a0 By providing protection to the source, either through buffers from the reservoirs or by protecting the wellhead for the deep wells, water is available without much treatment.<\/p>\n

There are less uncontaminated water supplies available due to increasing population and increased use of water.\u00a0\u00a0 Water is treated before human consumption.\u00a0 Disinfection is an important step in the water treatment process to destroy pathogenic bacteria and other harmful agents.\u00a0 Most water is treated with chlorine, which is a very effective and economical method of treatment.\u00a0 An important advantage of using chlorine is that it has residual properties and continues to provide germ killing potential as the water travels from the distribution point to the end users.\u00a0 There are concerns about the formation of disinfection by-products from the reaction of the chlorine with humic substances in the water.\u00a0 Some of the bacteria and viruses we want to treat are becoming resistant to traditional means of disinfection.
\n
\nSanitation and Water Pollution<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sanitation is directly related to water quality and water pollution.\u00a0 The accepted approach to sanitation in the last century is to collect liquid waste in sewer systems, treat the wastewater in centralized treatment plants, and then discharging the effluent to surface water bodies.\u00a0 Although conventional sewer systems have significantly improved the public health situation for the communities, continued use adds pollution to our water supplies and reduces the purity of water needed for potable application later.\u00a0 This is becoming a worldwide problem not only for developing world with its inadequate sanitation, but also for developed world with its aging infrastructures that cannot meet the needs of increasing population.<\/p>\n

The conventional sewer system was developed at a time, in regions, and under environmental conditions that made it an appropriate solution for removing liquid wastes from cities.<\/p>\n

Today, some conventional sewer systems are no longer able to meet the pressing global needs.\u00a0 We need to develop newer ideas to address the issues of water quality conservation along with better means of waste disposal that do not pollute our water sources.<\/p>\n

Water-based sanitation systems are not only a serious disadvantage in water reuse, but also have become a liability to human health.\u00a0 Lack of nutrient recovery leads to a linear flow of nutrients from agriculture, via humans, to recipient water supply.\u00a0 The valuable nutrients and trace elements contained in human excrement are rarely rechanneled back into agriculture in conventional systems.\u00a0 Only a small fraction of the nutrients contained in the sewage sludge are reintroduced into the soil as fertilizer.\u00a0 Most of the nutrients are either destroyed in the treatment process (e.g., by nitrogen elimination) or enter the water cycle where they pollute the environment and increase unwanted algae in lakes and rivers.<\/p>\n

Not returning the nutrients to the soil has led to an increasing demand for chemical fertilizers, in response to the problem of decreasing soil fertility.\u00a0 Chemical fertilizers require large amounts of the energy and mineral resources such as phosphorous.\u00a0 Farmers around the world yearly require 135 million tons of mineral fertilizer for their crops, while at the same time conventional sanitation dumps 50 million tons of fertilizer equivalents into our water.<\/p>\n

Sanitation and the Future<\/strong><\/p>\n

Our conventional drinking and wastewater systems are largely linear, end-of-pipe systems where drinking water is misused to transport waste into the water cycle, which causes environmental damage and hygienic hazards and contributing to the water crisis.\u00a0 As population increases, the demand for water increases, which increases pollution and further depletes the available water.\u00a0\u00a0 Some wastewater treatment plant s overflow into waterways thereby reducing the amount of clean water.\u00a0 The new technologies that require chemically treated, high-pressure water to produce natural gas promise to further increase the stress on our water supplies.\u00a0 As the availability of clean, potable water and improved ways to manage our waste will become all-important.<\/p>\n

Alternative Waste Management<\/strong><\/p>\n

Older cities have sewer systems that combine waste and storm water in the same pipe.\u00a0 When rainstorms occur, it overwhelm the retention capacity of the sewage treatment plant, the combined storm water and sewage overflow into local rivers or streams.<\/p>\n

Solutions to wastewater problems in urban areas have been applied to rural communities.\u00a0 Federal programs that provide grants for construction of wastewater facilities, sewers and centralized treatment plants were constructed in these low-density rural settings.\u00a0 The cost of operating and maintaining the facilities imposes severe economic burdens on the communities.<\/p>\n

Wastewater treatment and disposal systems serving single homes have been used for many years, they have often been considered an inadequate or temporary solution until sewers could be constructed.\u00a0 Research has demonstrated that such systems, if constructed and maintained properly can provide a reliable and efficient mean of wastewater treatment and disposal at relatively low cost.<\/p>\n

The methods proposed to manage excreta and chemical waste in ways that serve to protect the water supply, and reduce the causes of disease.\u00a0 They also serve to address waste management at the source in an environmentally efficient manner without polluting the watershed.\u00a0 Possible alternative sources include:<\/p>\n