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which will help a little bit. But one other area that has been of interest 
to me is the recycling of wastes through the air which have resulted 
from the space program. Is this a possibility down the line, do you 
think, in the big cities? 
Dr. Guascow. May I call on Dr. Singer to respond, please? 
Mr. Frey. Yes. 
Dr. Sincer. The recycling of wastes in the space program was de- 
signed to do a very specific job. 
Mr. Frey. On a small scale? 
_ Dr. Sincer. Yes. And expense of course was no object there, because 
it would be more expensive to carry the extra weight than to do the 
recycling. 
I think recycling in the real world, when you are dealing with 
hundreds of tons or thousands of tons of material is a more complex 
job and has to be attacked by the most economical methods. I agree 
with you completely, however, that recycling and reuse is the right 
answer, ecologically the right ultimate answer. Our answer through 
the Federal Water Quality Administration is to develop more eco- 
nomical methods of doing this, those which would be competitive 
with the current techniques or even better. 
Mr. Frey. How close are you to this? 
Dr. Stveéer. Sir, there are two aspects to this problem. One is the 
recycling and reuse of water, that is turning sewage into water that 
can be reused again for various purposes, not just for irrigation and 
not just for industrial use, but even for domestic use if necessary. 
Mr. Frey. Can you comment on that as to where we are? 
Dr. Srncer. Be glad to. 
We have now reached the stage where we can clean up water to a 
state where it is fit to drink. One of my colleagues who testified before 
Congress here, to a different committee, actually drank reclaimed 
waste water while he delivered his testimony, to demonstrate this 
fact. 
The point, however, is that it is economically within reach. That 
is to say that the cost of cleaning up sewage is now almost within 
reach of the normal cleanup of water, plus the cost it takes to prepare 
let’s say river water for drinking purposes. It also has to be moni- 
tored of course and chlorinated. 
In fact, there are some countries overseas that have already gone 
to complete water reuse. What comes to mind is South Africa, which, 
because of water shortages, had to put one of its major cities, the city 
of Windhoek, on complete reuse of waste water. It is simply recycled 
and reused again. aaa 2 
Other countries such as Israel are moving in that direction, again 
because of extreme water shortages. 
Mr. Frey. The second phase? : 
Dr. Sincer. The second phase has to do with the reuse and re- 
cycling of sewage sludge. Sewage sludge ought to have some value. 
It is, after all, composed of nutrients, fertilizer-type materials. 
The problem seems to be partly the cost of transport, that is, taking 
it from the sewage treatment plant to where it can do some good; 
also, conditioning it so it can be introduced into the soil. We have 
in Cincinnati which is trying to tackle 
an active research program 1 
this problem and set up right at this time some demonstration proj- 
