One of the ways in which water corporations seek to increase supply is to sponsor the use of recycled sewage.

There is popular resistance to the human consumption of recycled water (Peter Spearritt Chapter 2; Sydney Morning Herald 2005b) because of anxieties about the efficiency of systems to eliminate the bacteria, protozoa and viruses commonly found in sewage, as well as the many biologically active molecules, such as drugs taken to control fertility, infection, hypertension, cholesterol, depression, and so on. The presence in sewage of preservatives added to food and beverages to which a significant minority, of people have allergic reactions is a further problem. A question also arises as to whether recycling systems can be maintained to produce high-quality water.

There is also increasing evidence that the engineering systems, including reverse osmosis, do not eliminate pharmaceutical drugs to a safe level, which may lead to increased health risks. Watkinson et al. (2007) report that 92 per cent of antibiotics are removed from treated sewage. A leading infectious-diseases physician and microbiologist, Professor Collignon, makes the point that this is only log 1 reduction, whereas for viruses and so on log 6 reductions are needed for microbiological safety (Collignon 2008).

One of the worrying features of the consideration over the use of recycled sewage in the potable-water supply is that this is being introduced without the benefit of community consultation. The community rejection of the proposal to use recycled sewage in the Towoomba water supply has led water authorities to proceed to develop such approaches to water without public plebiscite. Water-recycling plants are in operation, under construction or in advanced planning stages in Brisbane, Canberra and Sydney, for which there has been little or no independent research to explore the long-run health risks of such projects and no public discussion of them. The high energy consumption required to produce such water is rarely considered by the water authorities to be a serious problem.

The major preoccupation in the original development of urban water supplies was the supply of potable water to secure the health of the community. This was often reflected in the motto of the water supplier such as for Newcastle which proudly stated (in Latin) that it was ‘For the Public Health’ (Lloyd et al. 1992). Public-health concerns were also the rationale for making it compulsory for property owners to pay for the connection to the water supply and later to the sewerage system.

This single-mindedness was remarkably successful. The health of the community was improved dramatically.

Because only a small proportion of the water now consumed needs to be of potable quality, a significant proportion of the revenue of water authorities recently has been more related to consumption not primarily related to health needs. For a complex variety of reasons, water authorities have not been enthusiastic about pursuing strategies designed to reduce the reliance on the use of potable water for uses and activities that do not need such high-quality water. They have sometimes argued that it is too costly to develop dual-flow water systems or to develop methods to capture rainfall as alternative supplies. They have generally been more enthusiastic about the use of manufactured water from recycling or recycling sewage to provide supply and have tended to ignore the objections of the risks to community health raised by those opposed to the human consumption of recycled sewage.

Here we have a perverse situation. The original requirement to pay for water supplied to the property was justified on health grounds, yet those who now object on grounds of the risk to health by the forced consumption of recycled sewage are nonetheless required to pay for a service they regard as compromised.

While it should not be ignored, the large-scale recycling of wastewater for human consumption need not be part of a comprehensive solution to better urban water-conservation practice. If recycling wastewater for human use proves politically difficult, then there are alternatives.