Until recently, municipalities across Canada were only required to use primary water treatment, meaning wastewater plants would clean solid waste – or “floatables” – from the water. Primary treatment doesn’t include liquids, such as spoiled milk, or cleaning products and even the old medications that get poured down our drains.
Last year, Environment Canada announced new federal regulations that say primary treatment plants don’t cut it anymore. Now, cities must use secondary wastewater treatment or better to remove bacteria and other things that have dissolved in our wastewater. Similar wastewater standards have been in place in the U.S. for almost 40 years.
16×9 correspondent, Jackson Proskow, travelled across the country to discover just how much of what we flush down our drains ends up in rivers, lakes and oceans – and ends up coming back through our kitchen taps.
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