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"far cheaper than providing large amounts" that doesn't factor in the cost of plumbing an entire town with 3 sets. remember photos of the tangle of wires when D

"far cheaper than providing large amounts" that doesn't factor in the cost of plumbing an entire town with 3 sets. remember photos of the tangle of wires when DC vs AC fought? It's more expensive especially for a suburb of single family homes to plumb in sewers and water mains (long distances for low flows), vs plumbing in duplexes and apartments. having a secondary water system (e.g., purple pipes / grey water), for general lawn/washing and one for drinking/cooking - strikes a good balance. You don't want your potable water system to move too slowly. You also should have water towers at different heights (higher pressure in the potable system). any accidental interconnects (these do happen) will flow /away/ from the potable one. finally, letting people use rainwater, runoff, and letting them recycle lightly used potable water for other uses (like flushing toilets, watering gardens) is good - try to get every liter of water used twice as a goal. bonus: get past the ick factor and allow your sewage to be re-used (purple pipes) as the greywater after treatment at the plant.

geodel 1y ago
It is about bottom 2 billion not having safe drinking water. They are surely not having suburban homes with 3 sets of pipes. Its a one water pump + some filtration/cleaning mechanism for few thousand people who come there and collect it type situation.
carlosjobim 1y ago
You don't need any plumbing for safe drinking water. It can be delivered to the customer in gallons and bottles. That's how it's done in large parts of the world.
- CorrectHorseBat 1y ago
  But is that more efficient than having one set of plumbing with safe drinking water? I doubt it. Over here the price difference between drinking water from the tap and the cheapest bottled water is a factor ~200.
  - londons_explore 1y ago
    refillable water bottles are how it's done in most of the world. You go to a water shop, hand over a bottle, and they give you a one filled with a 15 liters of water, and you'll probably pay around 5 USD cents for that. The water will be filtered (but probably not with reverse osmosis, so there might still be a few viruses and a little lead contamination in it). The bottles will be filled thousands of times in their lifespan. The cost is higher per liter than piped water, but per person per year it's lower, due to the fact these people perhaps use only 5 liters per day of bottled water, and do clothes washing in non-potable rainwater off their roof.
    - 0xffff2 1y ago
      Hell, I do this for my drinking water in the United States. My tap water is perfectly safe to drink, but even after running through a brita filter it tastes aweful, so it's worth the 30 minutes a month it takes to got get RO filtered water from the water store.
  - vkou 1y ago
    What's actually cheaper is not bottled water, it's a village well.
    - carlosjobim 1y ago
      And what water do you think a poor person will prefer to drink: a) Some of the highest quality drinking water in the world, taken from a regional or national spring and delivered to their home for a very accessible price? or b) Slightly muddy well water that they have to go and fetch in a village well? Assuming they live in a village and assuming that there's ground water available. Which water would you prefer to drink? The comment I was replying to was talking about plumbing, so my response regarded settlements larger than villages. Any village where the ground water is good to drink have already dug a well, so no use in telling them to dig a well.
      - vkou 1y ago
more_corn 1y ago
You’re right it would be crazy to pipe clean water to our homes for drinking and deliver less clean water via ditch for irrigation. No wait, that’s perfectly sane, normal and common.
MisterTea 1y ago
> remember photos of the tangle of wires when DC vs AC fought? This sounds like someone confused a picture of early telegraph poles with multiple circuits, before high density cables were developed.

geodel 1y ago

It is about bottom 2 billion not having safe drinking water. They are surely not having suburban homes with 3 sets of pipes. Its a one water pump + some filtration/cleaning mechanism for few thousand people who come there and collect it type situation.

carlosjobim 1y ago

You don't need any plumbing for safe drinking water. It can be delivered to the customer in gallons and bottles. That's how it's done in large parts of the world.

CorrectHorseBat 1y ago
But is that more efficient than having one set of plumbing with safe drinking water? I doubt it. Over here the price difference between drinking water from the tap and the cheapest bottled water is a factor ~200.
- londons_explore 1y ago
  refillable water bottles are how it's done in most of the world. You go to a water shop, hand over a bottle, and they give you a one filled with a 15 liters of water, and you'll probably pay around 5 USD cents for that. The water will be filtered (but probably not with reverse osmosis, so there might still be a few viruses and a little lead contamination in it). The bottles will be filled thousands of times in their lifespan. The cost is higher per liter than piped water, but per person per year it's lower, due to the fact these people perhaps use only 5 liters per day of bottled water, and do clothes washing in non-potable rainwater off their roof.
  - 0xffff2 1y ago
    Hell, I do this for my drinking water in the United States. My tap water is perfectly safe to drink, but even after running through a brita filter it tastes aweful, so it's worth the 30 minutes a month it takes to got get RO filtered water from the water store.
- vkou 1y ago
  What's actually cheaper is not bottled water, it's a village well.
  - carlosjobim 1y ago
    And what water do you think a poor person will prefer to drink: a) Some of the highest quality drinking water in the world, taken from a regional or national spring and delivered to their home for a very accessible price? or b) Slightly muddy well water that they have to go and fetch in a village well? Assuming they live in a village and assuming that there's ground water available. Which water would you prefer to drink? The comment I was replying to was talking about plumbing, so my response regarded settlements larger than villages. Any village where the ground water is good to drink have already dug a well, so no use in telling them to dig a well.
    - vkou 1y ago

more_corn 1y ago

You’re right it would be crazy to pipe clean water to our homes for drinking and deliver less clean water via ditch for irrigation. No wait, that’s perfectly sane, normal and common.

MisterTea 1y ago

> remember photos of the tangle of wires when DC vs AC fought? This sounds like someone confused a picture of early telegraph poles with multiple circuits, before high density cables were developed.