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Difference between purified and drinking water?

Why isnt drinking water harvested from rain, then purified?

  • instead of from our toilets, then purified. ie cutting out all the hormones & drugs, needing to use less chlorine and less chemistry in general. i dont think the there isnt enough rainwater is a valid point because where does the water for the toilets initially come from? where does storm water go? i am grateful to have a level of drinking water that is safe, but am wondering why it couldnt be better for no extra work/cost/time etc. by purifying rainwater.

  • Answer:

    First of all, there -isn't- enough rain water. Our water supply comes from existing groundwater which does contribute to rain and is somewhat supplemented by rain, but has a far greater volume than the volume of rain that falls in any given period. Unless maybe you live in the tropics. Second, rainwater contains many of the same impurities found in groundwater. Water--from the ground, lakes, rivers, streams, etc,--evaporates into the atmosphere, and many times it carries contaminates with it into the clouds. What it doesn't carry with it during evaporation, it picks up from the clouds of industrial smoke, smog, etc that we pump into the air every day, further contaminating the rain that falls. It's not any easier, and it's certainly costlier, to purify rainwater as it falls than to clean groundwater as we use it.

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Rain water is harvested - what do you think reservoirs are for, and why do we build dams? To collect water.

psych_78

As far as I know, we ARE drinking rain water. The rain fills our reservoirs, that water is treated, and that's what comes into our houses for us to drink and wash in. I know that our dirty used water (from toilets, etc.) also gets purified, but that's only before it gets released into the rivers and seas. If we released untreated filthy water into the rivers and seas, it could damage the water life.

Sideways Gravity

What you're forgetting is that at some point rain was also toilet water, even urine at some time. There are only so many H2O molecules around-they get recycled again and again. And the majority of municipal water sources are reservoirs full of rain water, as someone else pointed out.

barbara

Where do you think the water in Reservoirs comes from. ? UK

Kernow Lady

You seem to have it backwards my friend. Here in the USA at least, we have extensive reservoirs and dams. There is only one reason to have them--to collect the runoff from rain and capture it for our use. We also have extensive sanitation systems, which include places where sewage is treated and filtered and reclaimed. The sewage water isn't pumped back into the reservoirs. In most cases it is filtered into the ground where it eventually makes it's way back into the water cycle. In some cases, the reclaimed water is used in agriculture.

chocolahoma

It's possible but here is a more authoritative assessment of the issue: (link in sources) It is probably safe to say that as water is likely to become the 'gold' of tomorrow (that's why the petro-chemical billionairs are buying up water resources all the time now) -- rain water catchment will become an essential ploy. But the real issue is not about how to obtain the water but how we ought to already be utlizing scarce water resources more sensibly and frugally...

Monkey0

rain water is collected from rain stored in reservoir normally pump from rivers in the winter and summer's if the river's are high where we live near the south downs the rain falls on the downs then filters through the chalk in to natural reservoir under the downs then pump to your homes

D R

It is.

Jw

Harvesting it would be difficult. There would be droughts and everyone would be thirst. Some individual villages do do this though. To get enough rain we'd need big dishes all over the world to catch it in. What would be do with all the toilet water? Sewage plants would absolutely overflow? Sennd it to sea? We'd still need to purify it. So then we're paying more for two systems, because we still have to purify toilet water. Also, rain water is needed for other things, like watering crops in a natural way. Sure, with rainwater we'd hav eenough water, but not enough vegetables or fruit. So yeah, that's why I think.

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