05-05-2025
Making drinking water from sewage and other big ideas at Chicago Water Week
Recycling sewage into drinking water may sound gross, but it's one of many ideas being floated at this year's Chicago Water Week.
The big picture: To better understand this alternative to diverting H20 from water-rich areas like ours, Axios talked to Peter Annin, author of "Purified: How Recycling Sewage is Transforming our Water."
He'll speak at the Shedd Aquarium on Thursday.
His biggest surprise: How many communities are already drinking former sewage, including Orange County, California; San Diego; El Paso and more.
"It is happening all over the Sunbelt and most people don't even realize it," Annin tells Axios.
The big takeaway:"There are only two realistic options left for 'new' water supplies: the ocean and the toilet, and that the toilet is the more sustainable option — as long as people can just get over the yuck factor," he says.
Zoom in: Closer to home, Green Bay Packaging is using "recycled sewage to make their paper and not discharging any wastewater into the once notoriously polluted Fox River," Annin says.
The intrigue: Rare earth minerals may be the next resource scientists extract from wastewater, according to new research.
UChicago researcher Chong Liu and others will talk about a process to pull lithium from "dilute sources" on Tuesday night in a program that is already filled up.
If you go: You can find all the Water Week events, including Annin's Thursday talk here. Highlights include:
