Any better solution to waste water than just dumping it in a river?

[Great Sage Equal of Heaven]

It just feels wrong. You can recycle most solid waste, is there a way to do the same with sewage?

[Mvelon]

There are sewage water treatment plants that cleans the water before dumping if that is what you mean?

[4X-Fan]

Originally posted by Mvelon:

There are sewage water treatment plants that cleans the water before dumping if that is what you mean?

That lessens the pollution, but what comes out is still sewage hat has to be dumped. The OP probably has in mind to get out fresh water again, but that's not how it works (neither in game nor in reality).

The only other method of dealing with sewage in the game is exporting it - but that costs money and soon becomes impractical because of the volumes you would need to transport per truck.

[Great Sage Equal of Heaven]

What does happen then, in reality? We treat what we can and dump the rest in the ocean?

[kiky]

In most places water gets treated, some chemical and biological processes break down most pollutants, some amount of sludge gets sorted out and usualy burned or used as fertilizer.

The water is much better after that but not drinking quality at all, it ends up in rivers where plants filter out the overabundant nutrients (you know what you flush down the toilet)

Drinking water usualy gets taken out of rivers only upstream, or way downstream of sources of wastewater. if this is not possible groundwater is used (which is also the same water but filtered trough layers and layers of ground.

[kiky]

Technicly you can turn ingame wastewater into drinking water.
dumping the wastewater in a pond, use a water intake from the same pond to your waterworks.
and spend a billion tons of chemicals.

what happens if you would mix wastewater and drinking water, you just have to listen to the news for the outbreaks of disseases after floods, earthquakes or heavy storms, when every wastewater infrastructure overflows and contaminates fresh water sources.

[MrKrabs]

Side note OT.
Few years ago houseowners in my hometown had to separate rain and sewage into two separate pipes to prevent the sewage site from overflowing during heavy rain.

[Mvelon]

I work with sewers daily. In denmark we mostly (still in progress in many towns) separate water and sweage. Surface water gets collected alone and cleaned by a few processes before released back into rivers. Same thing waste water but takes a few more steps, we use mechanical cleaning, bio cleaning and chemical cleaning again before iits released into water areas like rivers.

[dragonflyer]

Generally, making drinkable water from sewage is not practical on scale. Pretty much the only time it makes sense is if you're on a space station and have to recycle everything. You can't do it by dumping chemicals into it, either. The point of treating the water is to avoid poisoning the surroundings.

[Great Sage Equal of Heaven]

Great, thanks for the information

[Porkypants]

I usually dig a hole and plant a lot of trees around it. If you are mean also fire helicopter

[Deco Boladasso]

'It just feels wrong' - yes, but its deliciously cheap. Welcome to the world of realpolitiks. The difference between you and a real politician is that they never look back into what they droped into the toilet, if you catch my drift.

Jokes aside, its how it happens in real life as mentioned. Also yes its expensive to really deal with this type of pollution, and yes we do drop it in the same river that we take drinking water. That's likely the main reason why we are having so many climatic and pollution related issues nowadays.

[Great Sage Equal of Heaven]

Thanks comrades, I'm sorted now. I'd been taught to expect pollution mcguffins by western inferior city builders.

[Wraithweave]

Originally posted by Great Sage Equal of Heaven:

What does happen then, in reality? We treat what we can and dump the rest in the ocean?

Waste water automation worker here.

Short answer: That is exactly what happens.

Long answer: That is exactly what happens, or that is what happens under optimal circumstances. First the domestic waste water goes down your home's pipes and then they are gathered into septic wells, which have pumps. Once the well is full enough, it pumps it through a pipe towards waste water treatment facility. Most likely there are other septic wells on the way, in the same network, as well. Think of all the pipes like a spider web, with the waste water treatment plant in the middle of the web.

After it arrives to the waste water treatment facility, it goes into these big pools inside the facility. Now the funny thing is, despite having entire city's bodily waste in open pools inside the facility, it doesn't really smell that bad inside. In these pools, there is bacteria that slowly eats the more solid bodily waste, after which what remains will float towards section where more or less harmless chemicals neutralize the pH and clarify the water. After this, the processed water goes through a pipe either to a lake or a river, seen both used, doesn't really matter. The waste water treatment facility also has an input pipe for septic trucks, that bring in waste water from remote regions that aren't part of the waste water network. From that input, the waste water from the septic truck just goes to the same treatment as the waste water that arrived by pipe.

Even this long answer could be longer if I would get into details.

What I like about Workers and Resources is that it pretty much has this whole system laid out as well as it can be laid out in a game. There are the septic wells, from which the water is pumped to the treatment, which needs chemicals and time to process the waste water, doesn't produce pollution and then must get rid of the processed water.

Side-note, fun information to know: Waste water treatment facilities cannot process chemicals. These chemicals are usually medicine and pregnancy prevention pills (e-pills or whatever they are called). So quite a lot of medicine that cannot be processed ends up in natural water near waste treatment facilities. The female hormones from the e-pills are quite harmful to local fish population, as it causes the male fishes to develop to be... Less masculine. This is the reason why the fish population near water treatment facilities is usually less fertile.

[DeWollfy]

Originally posted by Wraithweave:

Originally posted by Great Sage Equal of Heaven:

What does happen then, in reality? We treat what we can and dump the rest in the ocean?

Waste water automation worker here.

Short answer: That is exactly what happens.

Long answer: That is exactly what happens, or that is what happens under optimal circumstances. First the domestic waste water goes down your home's pipes and then they are gathered into septic wells, which have pumps. Once the well is full enough, it pumps it through a pipe towards waste water treatment facility. Most likely there are other septic wells on the way, in the same network, as well. Think of all the pipes like a spider web, with the waste water treatment plant in the middle of the web.

After it arrives to the waste water treatment facility, it goes into these big pools inside the facility. Now the funny thing is, despite having entire city's bodily waste in open pools inside the facility, it doesn't really smell that bad inside. In these pools, there is bacteria that slowly eats the more solid bodily waste, after which what remains will float towards section where more or less harmless chemicals neutralize the pH and clarify the water. After this, the processed water goes through a pipe either to a lake or a river, seen both used, doesn't really matter. The waste water treatment facility also has an input pipe for septic trucks, that bring in waste water from remote regions that aren't part of the waste water network. From that input, the waste water from the septic truck just goes to the same treatment as the waste water that arrived by pipe.

Even this long answer could be longer if I would get into details.

What I like about Workers and Resources is that it pretty much has this whole system laid out as well as it can be laid out in a game. There are the septic wells, from which the water is pumped to the treatment, which needs chemicals and time to process the waste water, doesn't produce pollution and then must get rid of the processed water.

Side-note, fun information to know: Waste water treatment facilities cannot process chemicals. These chemicals are usually medicine and pregnancy prevention pills (e-pills or whatever they are called). So quite a lot of medicine that cannot be processed ends up in natural water near waste treatment facilities. The female hormones from the e-pills are quite harmful to local fish population, as it causes the male fishes to develop to be... Less masculine. This is the reason why the fish population near water treatment facilities is usually less fertile.

iirc places with well-developed water systems reclaim about up to 99% of the waste water. Meaning that many of us will eventually end up drinking the very same water we flushed down the drain. Really, if we wanted a good simulation of water mangement in a game, it would be all about reclaimation and not ruining or exhausting the ground water table.

[Wraithweave]

You are absolutely correct on that and that's how it has always been. And before we flushed down the water and drank it, it was drank by medieval peasants and returned to the ground via outhouse. Before the medieval peasants, it was drank by cavemen and returned to the ground via closest bush, so on. The cycle water being consumed and returned to ground water is eternal. Only variable is how long it takes for it to return to the ground water. :)

As for this game being good water management simulation in the current setup of just exhausting the water table, I'd say it is a very good Soviet water management simulation. No other economic system has ever been able to drain world's 4th largest lake. ;)