In the recycled water debate, reference is often made to the 'yuk' factor, something obviously promoted by the insistence of some to refer to recycled water as 'recycled sewage'.

The suggestion is that existing water sources, by contrast, are natural and of high quality, two assumptions that are woefully wide of the mark. Despite this, there is a high level of public trust in water supplied by local authorities. This is not due to the quality of the water source but rather to the effective operation of water treatment plants.

The accompanying photographs are not intended to cause alarm among water users but rather to provide a visual challenge to any assumptions of purity of our current raw water sources. All photographs were taken in Queensland, in waterways that drinking supply is extracted from, and illustrate only some of the commonly occuring contaminants. They also underscore the public's confidence in drinking-water treatment, a confidence which should plainly be extended to the operation of recycling plants.

Of course, in any discussion on water recycling it doesn’t take long before attention is focused on a number of chemicals known as endocrine disruptors... read more about them here.