Texas Town Recycling Urine Into Drinking Water

NASA has used a system on the ISS for years that captures all the wastewater from the toilet and filters it to make water for drinking and cleaning. This would be the worst part of being an astronaut. No matter how clean the water is I would think constantly that I might be drinking the urine of another astronaut. Space isn't the only place where people are forced to get every bit of water out of what they have to live.

I mentioned a while back that Texas is having a very severe drought all around the state. In fact, the drought and the shrinking lakes is what led to the discovery of the tank from the ill-fated space shuttle Columbia tragedy. One Texas town has been so hard hit by the drought that it is having to install a high-tech filtration system similar to the NASA tech on the ISS to filter urine and wastewater for drinking.

The town is Big Spring, Texas, which is rather ironic for the name of a city facing a water shortage. There are 27,000 residents in the area and they get their water from the Colorado River Municipal Water District. Obviously, the filtration plant will use all manner of methods to purify the water before sending it to the homes of residents. The thought of drinking any water that is derived from urine is not appealing at all, but any water would be better than no water.

[via Discovery]