ACS Video Explains How Residential Sewage Becomes Drinking Water
Through its ChemMatters magazine, the American Chemical Society is educating youth about wastewater treatment processing.
The American Chemical Society (ACS) has put together a high definition video, "How Wastewater Goes from Polluted to Pure," through its www.BytesizeScience.com website and on the Bytesize Science podcast on iTunes.
Based on an article in the February 2011 issue of ChemMatters, ACS’s quarterly magazine for high school students, the video explains how the mix of human waste, food, grease, soap, and other organic materials, filled with bacteria and viruses, is removed from sewage in wastewater treatment plants.
The final product is probably cleaner than most tap water and safe as the safest bottled water, but it actually does not go back directly to the kitchen faucet, the ACS press release explains. Treatment plants throughout the United States often put fully treated water into bodies of water so that it is filtered down as rainwater via the natural process known as the water cycle.
The magazine has been connecting chemistry to every day lives for the past 28 years.
ACS is a non-profit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. With more than 163,000 members, ACS is the world’s largest scientific society and a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.
Source: American Chemical Society