Engineers Urge Recycling Urine - ABC News

Limited space and resources on the International Space Station means astronauts must take
conservation to the extreme what they excrete in sweat or urine can end up in their next drink.
Quenching one's thirst with what was once flushed down the toilet may seem repulsive, but it's an
idea that is beginning to catch on here on Earth.
One of the biggest issues global leaders are tackling this week at the Earth Summit in Johannesburg
is water shortages. A United Nations report recently estimated 31 countries hosting 8 percent of the
world's population face chronic water shortages. By the year 2025, that's expected to climb to 48
countries with 35 percent of the population.
One way to ensure everyone has enough water in the future is to 'Reduce, Reuse, Recycle' when it
comes to water and human waste.
"I think reuse will be one of an array of solutions needed to take on water shortages worldwide,"
says Payal Sampat, a research associate in water issues at the Worldwatch Institute.
Sampat points out that a less controversial way to recycle wastewater is to treat it and then use it to
irrigate farms, rather than for drinking. This is done in many parts of the world already, including
California, Florida, Arizona, Virginia and extensively in the arid state of Israel.
But engineers for NASA and for at least one municipality in the United States aim to go further.
California Battling 'Yuck' Factor
"If you go on the street and ask anyone if they'd like to drink their own wastewater, they're going to
say 'no,'" says Ron Wildermuth, a spokesman for the water district of Orange County, California,
where a major water reuse plan is being considered. "But we explain to people, the quality of water
ends up higher than what they already drink."
Wildermuth has spent the past five years selling the notion of recycling wastewater for drinking to
Orange County residents. The municipality is collaborating with the county's sanitation district to
build a $600 million sewage-purification system. When and if the project is completed in 20 years or
so, it will be the largest of its kind in the world.
And the technology Orange County would use to recycle their water is very similar to systems in use
or in design for long-term space travel.
"On the space shuttle, every pound counts and water is heavy," says Karen Pickering, a researcher
at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. "So we're working on systems to recycle water from
hand washing, showers, urine and humidity."
By "humidity," Pickering means sweat and the breath people exhale. Currently, a Russian-designed
system on board the International Space Station recycles about 50 percent of its water from
moisture that collected in dehumidifiers from the breath and sweat of astronauts and lab animals.
Pickering and others are designing a system to launch in 2005 or 2006 that will recycle up to 99

percent of water on the station, including urine.

Purifying Bacteria
This is how the NASA system might work. Urine, sweat and other liquid waste is collected from
commodes and dehumidifiers and pumped through a water processor containing special bacteria.
The bacteria consume many of the contaminants in the water, producing carbon dioxide and solid
matter as side products. The filtered water is then pressed through sheets of plastic membranes that
separate the dirty water from the clean water in a process known as reverse osmosis.
The same process is now commonly used in Israel to desalinate seawater. If done right, the result is
water that's so pure, it's absolutely tasteless. But Pickering cautions, the process now requires a lot
of supervision.
"We go through a lot of steps and checks to make sure the water's safe," she says. "In a community
where you don't have that kind of checking, it's more difficult to be as careful."

Proponents of the Orange County project say their reuse program is safe in fact some of the county's
treated wastewater already ends up in water reservoirs after it has been used as a buffer again
ocean water.
But earlier this year, some were concerned when a tiny amount of a suspected carcinogen ended up
in treated water. The chemical was traced to a plastics plant upstream and the water was eventually
deemed harmless. But the incident raised the concern among some who think treatment is not yet
thorough enough.
Cheaper Alternative?
Wildermuth argues that the new treatment system will be much more thorough than any system in

existence. And, he points out the broader sewer treatment program could provide enough water to
satisfy the thirst of 600,000 new residents projected for the area over the next two decades at a
cheaper cost than importing water from the Colorado River.
But similar proposals have been killed by opposition. San Diego residents rejected plans to recycle
wastewater three years ago and a water reuse project in Castro Valley, California was abandoned
after environmentalists argued the extra water would encourage a burst in population in the area.
As it's now envisioned, the Orange County system would use reverse osmosis, like the NASA
systems, as one of the final steps. But instead of using bacteria as a first step in treatment, the
California system would force water through a microfilter that would cull out any suspended
particles.
"The cost of purifying water is about half, maybe a third of the cost of desalinating ocean water,"
says Wildermuth. "We're confident when our project is up and operating, it will be replicated in
every arid coastal region in the world."
That may sound like a grand endeavor, but at least Orange County's engineers won't have to deal
with one sticky issue that NASA's engineers face: microgravity.
As Pickering says, "Figuring out how to separate gas and liquid without the luxury of gravity is the
hardest part." Like water, "It's something we can take for granted."
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