I don't know where people think their drinking water comes from. People in Adelaide don't want to drink "recycled water" but they live at the end of the Murray River which has already had the treated sewage from hundreds of towns recycled through it. Where did the water come from before then? Surely not rain water!
Maybe if you live in a heavily polluted part of the inner city, there might be a possibility that your water could be polluted by exhaust fumes, maybe even industrial pollution. But that stuff's in the air they breathe anyway!
Here's the article
From the ABC:
Study to determine suitability of drinking rainwater
A study will be conducted in Adelaide to find out whether rainwater is safe to drink.
Monash University, the South Australian Department of Health and the Cooperative Research Centre for Water Quality and Treatment will carry out the study.
About 300 Adelaide families who drink rainwater will take part in the trial to find out if the water affects their health.
The families will be given filters for their tanks, but only half the filters will be real.
The researchers have chosen Adelaide because it has the highest use of rainwater tanks in Australia.
Health Department water quality adviser David Cunliffe says given the current drought, they want to be able to encourage people to use rainwater.
"This is a national study," he said.
"Interstate there are a number of health authorities who are reluctant to recommend drinking of rainwater, particularly in capital cities where mains water is available and that's because they have doubts about safety.
"So the aim of this study is to answer some of those doubts, address some of those concerns."
There has been a recommendation from a NSW state govt dep't (or it might still be in the pipeline, so to speak) to local government bodies that they should alter their building codes such that:- rainwater plumbing should use specially-marked pipes, either purple or with a purple stripe- all taps that are connected to rainwater should be labelled "non-potable water" (ie not for drinking)The reasoning is that govt cannot test all the privately owned tanks for health purposes, so cannot guarantee the water is safe to drink.I wish the people that make such recommendations would visit Narrabri and taste the alternative..
ReplyDeleteI'm told Adelaide tap water is as bad as Narrabri's-- that's why they have more rainwater tanks than any other metropolitan city in Australia.Instead of all this rubbish of trying to protect people from nature we could do what we do in other parts of life- educate people and then make standards or codes of practice so that potential harms are reduced.My dad lives in Batemans Bay which is about as pristine as you can get and he was worried about drinking tank water. It's all about perceptions not reality
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