Majority would drink recycled sewage

AN overwhelming majority of Australians would be prepared to drink recycled sewage to help ease a national crisis in urban water supplies that has forced escalating restrictions on water use.
A Newspoll conducted exclusively for The Australian shows almost seven out of 10 people favour water from sewage treatment plants being supplied to homes for all household uses, including drinking, provided it is treated to the same quality as existing water supplies.

Most of the remainder say they would be prepared to use recycled sewage for non-drinking purposes, such as flushing toilets and watering gardens.

The survey comes ahead of Queensland Premier Peter Beattie's March 17 referendum for southeast Queensland on using recycled water to top up falling dam levels.

Southeast Queensland's dams are down to 24.2 per cent. They were last full in January 2000. If the summer rains fail again, the rapidly growing region will have less than two years' supply left.

from The Australian