Treated sewage snubbed
Aucklanders say they won’t drink treated sewage unless national water priorities change.
Last month Raveen Jaduram, chief executive of Watercare, said the council controlled organisation was looking at the possibility of reusing treated sewage for human consumption, industry, agriculture or reinjection into the aquifer.
Similar action was posited in the Australian city of Toowoomba, but residents rejected the idea because of the ‘‘yuck factor’’.
The main reservations of members on social media site Neighbourly wasn’t that drinking recycled sewage was gross, but that it should not happen while New Zealand’s clean water was bottled and sold overseas.
In Waikato Coca-Cola extracts water for its Pump Brand. In Canterbury Japanese company Suntory Holdings extracts water for its H2Go and Mizone drinks.
Glendowie resident Kathy Weston asked why Aucklanders might have to drink sewage when clean spring water was going cheap to overseas companies.
Hillsborough resident Peter Crowley said he wasn’t willing to drink treated sewage.
Onehunga resident Christina Sajewicz said she would drink it - if she was dying of thirst.
‘‘If we had to reuse dirty water, it should be for washing ourselves, laundry and flushing toilets,’’ Sajewicz said.