Would you drink recycled waste water?

That was the question Jeffrey Koseff, an engineering professor at Stanford University, asked students Tuesday, May 1, during his talk about modern-day issues concerning water resources.

“This is from Singapore; this is called New Water,” Koseff said, pointing to a picture of a water bottle on a computer presentation. “Do you know where that water comes from? It comes straight from the sewage treatment plant. Are you going to drink that water? You look at it and you hold it up to the light and it’s pure, it’s pristine. You can’t see anything in it. And as soon as I tell you that it comes from the sewage treatment plant pretty much directly, you go ‘I’m not going to drink that.’”

Koseff, the William Alden Campbell and Martha Campbell Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, also cited studies showing that recycled waste water is in fact completely clean; he would later show a video essentially breaking opposition to reusing waste water down to a simply psychological issue. 

“If I take that same water [New Water] and pour it into [a reservoir] and put a pipe in and suck it out and then put it [into a bottle], you’ll say it’s natural and there’s no problem,” Koseff said. “So it’s all about perception.”

Earlier in the talk, Koseff spoke about the availability of water on the planet. Making sure to emphasize the fact that the issue is not how much water is available in the world but rather how much of it is actually in use, Koseff said that 2,100 to 2,500 cubic meters of water are used per person per year in the United States. According to Koseff, the sufficient annual water requirement is 1,700 cubic meters. 

Koseff also focused on water resource management moving forward through a variety of mediums. First, Koseff spoke about the need to incorporate more science and technology into water conservation efforts: further characterization of major stressors (population, climate change, etc.), restoration endeavors, reclamation technologies and desalination. 

“Hopefully in 10 years we will have energy positive systems, systems that actually convert energy and make energy available rather than using energy,” Koseff said. “We will be able to recover not only water but some of the stuff that’s in the water like fertilizers and nutrients.” 

Also, Koseff talked about the need to engage local populations in water resource management efforts through programs such as local resource monitoring. 

Rounding out the discussion with a focus on the more political aspects of such efforts, Koseff mentioned the need for institutional reform in legal, fiscal and organizational structures. 

In addition to his role in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at Stanford, Koseff is also The Michael Forman University Fellow in Undergraduate Education and The Perry L. McCarthy Director of the Woods Institute for the Environment.