More hot statistics ...

A recent CSIRO-Water for a Healthy Country National Research Flagship report (May 2005) contains some interesting statistics.

See - CSIRO - Predicting Reuse Behaviour.

Surveys were conducted in Perth regarding the use of recycled water.

And here are some of the results!

Two surveys were taken of participants - Survey 1 which was a preliminary phone survey and Survey 2 which occurred after people had completed recycled water taste tests.

Use of treated wastewater for drinking:

Survey 1 - 45.7% thought it unacceptable or highly unacceptable (with 22.8% presumably undecided).

Survey 2 - 57.1% thought it unacceptable or highly unacceptable (with 19.8% presumably undecided) (Page 11).

The report indicates that the participants were less accepting of recycled wastewater the closer it moved to human contact (drinking it being the highest form of human contact in the survey questions).

The fairness of asking people to use treated wastewater for drinking:

Survey 2 only - 62.7% thought it unfair or extremely unfair (with 16.5% presumably undecided) (Page 12).

"Participants seemed to have lowered acceptance of reuse after being faced with recycled water" (Page 11).

Participants also consistently felt less trusting of private companies and local councils to manage wastewater programs in WA (Page 13).

The survey was part of a three year investigation which resulted in a report entitled "Predicting Community Behaviour in relation to Wastewater Reuse". The number of people surveyed was relatively small and people were NOT forced to swallow the samples!

Interestingly, the report notes that participants who attended the experiment were the more pro-reuse and pro-environmental sector of the Perth population (Page 48).

Imagine if the CSIRO did a similar survey in Toowoomba. Would the results be any different?