Recycled water - giving 1 person in 1000 the sh*ts ...

- analysis of secondary treated sewage showed it could contain more than 500 chemicals, including pharmaceuticals, hormones, fragrances, pesticides, disinfectants and dioxins

- draft guidelines recommend using recycled water with a "tolerable risk" - an annual risk of one case of diarrhoea per 1000 people

- maximum allowable level of pharmaceuticals in recycled water would be 100th the lowest daily dose of that normally prescribed by a doctor.

- for cancer-causing compounds and steroid hormones - maximum of 1,000th the normal dose.

Anyone wondering about the impact of the combination of all those 100th and 1,0000th normal doses?

And an annual risk of 1 in 1000 getting the sh*ts. That's around 100 people per annum in Toowoomba. Hope they're Yes voters.

Excerpt from the Sydney Morning Herald:

Recycled sewage closer to tap, within limits

3 August 2007

Drinking recycled sewage has moved a step closer with the drafting of what are said to be the world's first national guidelines to establish standards for recycled water quality.

The draft guidelines published yesterday by the National Health and Medical Research Council provide a crucial advance in the development of recycling, water industry executives say.

A water-quality expert, David Cunliffe, said one of the significant barriers to informed discussion had been the lack of national or international guidelines on recycled water.

Dr Cunliffe, who headed the expert panel that produced the guidelines, said analysis of secondary treated sewage showed it could contain more than 500 chemicals, including pharmaceuticals, hormones, fragrances, pesticides, disinfectants and dioxins.

Extracting potable water from sewage required the removal of harmful parasites such as cryptosporidium and pathogenic bacteria and viruses, thousands of which were present in just one litre of sewage.

The draft guidelines recommend that water with a "tolerable risk", using World Health Organisation standards, should be that posing an annual risk of one case of diarrhoea per 1000 people.

The maximum allowable level of pharmaceuticals in recycled water would be one-hundredth the lowest daily dose of that normally prescribed by a doctor, and for cancer-causing compounds and steroid hormones one-thousandth the normal dose.

The standards are expected to be applied to two water recycling projects already under way or being planned in Queensland and the ACT.

Dr Cunliffe said the guidelines showed it was possible to produce safe drinking water from recycled sewage. "These guidelines show recycling water will be a big challenge. They don't make it any easier," he told the Herald. But they did provide an achievable basis for recycling water, he said.

The guidelines were a significant advance on five years ago, when the idea of recycling was hardly discussed. "Where recycling will go now in terms of volumes I cannot predict," he said.

A water supply executive, Peter Donlon, said the guidelines were a crucial development.
With the impact of water shortages being felt throughout Australia, governments would inevitably have to consider the option of recycling, he said.

However, Mr Donlon, the technical director of the Water Services Association of Australia - which represents the biggest water utilities - joined others in expressing concern about the lack of competent staff to provide round-the-clock supervision of complex technologies in which a breakdown could have disastrous, even fatal, consequences.

The Australian draft guidelines had drawn keen interest from overseas, Mr Donlon said.

Peter Collignon, a microbiologist who had criticised ACT plans for water recycling, welcomed the guidelines, although he said he would like to see more specific provisions to deal with issues such as how long the recycled water should be stored before being released into the system.

Professor Collignon also expressed concern about the presence of allergy-causing contaminants in recycled water that were hard to identify and contain but that could trigger serious problems for a small percentage of people.

See - Recycled water guidelines.

Interesting that the draft guidelines have drawn keen interest from overseas. Weren't we told it was already done everywhere ...