Could You Drink Toilet Water? Arizona May Force You To

Water is a scarce resource here in the desert. We rely heavily on our natural reservoirs, but even that's not enough.

On occasion, we'll pipe fresh water from California, but that gets to be expensive, and now Arizona's looking for a cheaper, more reliable way to get fresh water to the Valley and beyond.

Water Purification in Arizona

For over three decades, Arizona has been using Advanced Water Purification to recycle water back into the state's system, allowing for much less waste than we were used to. It's a relatively complicated process, starting by taking recycled water from local reclamation plants.

Once the water is transferred, it is put through ozonation, membrane ultrafiltration, reverse osmosis and ultraviolet photolysis. The water proceeds to move to a dry well, where it will be put through 400 feet of natural filtration, making it safe to use for utilities, just not drinking. That's about to change.

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The Feds Just Made a HUGE Mistake in Arizona

Drinking Wastewater

Having useable recycled water is one thing, but allowing the general population to drink it would be a massive step towards water independence in Arizona. It turns out, we're already on the path to it. The goal is to send the water through an extra layer of purification, eliminating the need to return it to rivers and aquifers before it can be used.

This all starts in Scottsdale, with their Advanced Water Purification System, which can recycle up to 20 million gallons of water a day. This process is now being opened up to other cities across the state, allowing them to recycle their own water, and stave off the drought that constantly effects Arizona.

[NBC12][City of Scottsdale]