“Don’t drink the water,” is the biggest cliché in travel advice; in third world countries, must of us follow this advice as though it were law.
The next time I visit Queensland, Australia, however, I’m going to think twice about drinking the water despite the fact that Australia is hardly a pauper nation. The reason for this hesitation is a recent decision by the local government of Queensland to begin recycling sewage water into drinking water.
In other words, that which you’ve drank before, you will drink again–after, of course, it’s passed through your body, the Australian sewer system, a purification plant, water pipelines, and then finally out of your faucet and into your glass. A perfect cycle of nature!
The controversial decision comes in the midst of a drought which has dangerously depleted the region’s water levels. Faced with a growing population and decreasing water supplies, the Queensland government is hoping to remedy the situation by next year with the introduction of the recycled waste water.
Of course, this won’t affect most Australians I know as they only drink beer, not water. That doesn’t mean we can’t start calling them potty-mouth, however.