Drought pushes Texas residents to drink (recycled) pee

According to the latest reports online, folks living in Texas right now are experiencing record-breaking, scorching hot weather and that’s not the worst part: they also have the drought to deal with. Apparently it’s so bad that Texans have been driven to drink their own pee just to survive – at least that’s what the citizens of Big Spring are doing anyway. Fortunately, it’s not what you think.

Inspired by NASA’s innovations in recycled urine-drinking (yes, they have a limited supply of water when flying around in space), the folks in Big Spring, Texas are installing a wastewater recycling plant to transform sewage into drinking water. While this may sound gross and disgusting to most people, it’s actually not that bad.

The recycling plant will take treated wastewater that’s normally discharged into a creek, and blending it with traditionally supplied drinkable water. This allows the city to save the pure drinkable water that they have left, while still providing the city with enough water to get by. There’s no telling to when this drought will end, so it’s best that they save as much water possible.

Although cities used to simply flush waste and get new clean water, the increased scarcity of water makes local authorities to consider this type of solution more frequently. [Image Credit: tamunews]

George Wong
Categories: Green
Tags: recycle, water