Drought-plagued California wants residents to drink recycled wastewater

Drought-plagued California looks to recycled wastewater

Arrowhead. Poland Spring. Fiji. SmartWater. At the end of the day, it's all just the bottled product of what happens when two hydrogen molecules bond with an oxygen molecule, mixed with a few minerals here and there — and a movement in drought-plagued California is hoping water-drinkers can recognize that.

A New York Times report this morning spotlighted a specialized plant in Orange County where wastewater is processed through "several stages of purification that left it cleaner than anything that flows out of a faucet or comes in a brand-name bottle." In fact, the water is literally "stripped down to the H, 2, and O," the general manager of the county's water district explained, and the purification process removes the flavor-adding minerals found in most water supplies.

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Kimberly Alters

Kimberly Alters is the news editor at TheWeek.com. She is a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.