thanks Cj M.
still it s all a grand argument
my thoughts are _sure there is alot of water and 2/3 of that is fetid or near to.
also would you throw your dinner to the chooks and eat the scraps
thats kind of what we are doing when we use any water other than grey to wash our clothes, water the garden and etc etc,we have to pretty much flouridate all of our water down south here if its going through miles of murky pipes as overnight etc when there is no flow things stew and id be scared to think of what might be happening then. Down south here we dont actually drink the tap water(we have home filtration) come down here and try it and youd know why,_ and yes its like gulping over chlorinated swimming pool water. That dosent mean we ought be flushing it down the loo or watering the lawn with it though_its been through one hell of a journey B4 we get it , down south here we need to be more careful than we are ,not JUST households, Factories, newspaper printers,etc,.
Any way to get of the subject a little , did any one see the waterless washing mashine at the Powerhouse Design Show last year? good idea except it probably uses alot of ENERGY? i dont know, does anyone know about waterless washing machines? washing uses alot of fresh water in our super civilised city here.

Droughts perpetuate droughts.Less evaporation from the ground creates less clouds meaning less rain. The more HEALTHY water we use for our gardens and trees the more green groundcover and "slow release" evaporation is establishing the cycle. So to use our medicated tapwater is medicating and killing our ground flora therefore killing ourselves in the long run because all life starts in the top 10cm of our topsoil.
As far as Fluoride (as a natural element) is concerned it is represented in almost all countries' natural waters.We do NOT have natural fluoride in our tapwater ADDED, it is coming straight from aluminium smelters and fertilizer production and is called fluorolisic acid amongs other fancy names.Factories cannot get rid of this poison by flushing down the drain like they used to.Do some research on this stuff,it is widely made available.
The old excuse of "it's in my/your genes" comes from big business avoiding litigation and should read instead:"The poison we make and let you have thru your food and drinks is altering your genes,anyone for a bite/drink?"

effnic
you sound informed, though im sure i have heard(somewhere) that flouride IS added to our water, that it is NO accident or waste by product.

Do you have any suggestions regarding new ideas to improve water use in our country.
New ideas ?
Do you thinkk reusing grey water for gardens and washing cars etc is a reasonable ,energy efficient option for Australians?

Just a thought after reading this thread and no intention of side tracking, but has anyone pondered that the de-salination plant in Sydney will de drawing water in close proximity (in relative terms) to the sewer outlets from the Sydney sewers?

Recycling waste effluent water would be sensible, if it could be done without using alot of ENERGY it’s probably a good idea, it would mean that we (humans) get to re-clean the waste water that we already dump into the coastline thus affecting /ruining the coastline.
At least that’s what I understand as being the truthful outcome of our effluent water that goes into the ocean; in any marine area it has a negative outcome, therefore the higher the population the more concern...
And, hey, are not many countries already recycling their waste' effluent' water? That IS ALOT of water every day consistently. Down here in S.A (Adelaide ,city) there has been debate about sending out the effluent waste to 'Malalla' for market gardens,(of course there would be some type of processing the 'product' waste so's that hygiene and science concerns are met. To me this makes a lot of sense as I have witnessed communities use their drop dunny holes to grow trees in, or and at least just feed the ground. Of course on a town and city scale this must be managed properly so that all health concerns are monitored scientifically.