Times have changed and the family outhouse is passé. Thank heavens. Although you got to look at the grass and flowers growing by the creek, the outhouse wasn't very comfortable-especially in the winter. When it was cold, you did your "business" in a hurry. In the summertime, the smell was bad. So, the advent of waste treatment facilities means that people can stay indoors and not have to carry water for a bath (or get in the creek). Most people nowadays do take it all for granted. They have no idea of the complexity of treating all that waste.
             I learned, for example, that "30 million gallons of toilet, shower, and laundry waste water" eventually empties into Cook Inlet every day. That is a staggering amount of water. And I had no idea of the process involved. I didn't know the "sludge" was burned, for instance, or that the water was tested after treatment to make sure it is pure enough to send back into the system.
             If we can create a "factory" to get rid of tons of waste every single day and make waste water drinkable again, I wonder why we can't build plants in places like Djibouti and Ethiopia where de-hydration is the number one cause of death. The horn of Africa is located on the Gulf of Aden. If we can remove sludge from the water, why not salt? Why couldn't water from the Gulf have the salt removed, so the people would have water to drink, and water to flush toilets, take showers, etc.? Also, it seems to me that the more people we have on this planet, the more complex and expensive the problem of waste treatment will be. Inevitably, a shortage of water is going to occur. Then what? Will we fight and have wars over water?
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