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Callous Indifference:  

In order to be successful at any endeavor, including having a sustainable system of clean, potable water, we must function within the rules of Nature.   For centuries, humans have been ignoring the facts of life  regarding how Planet Earth functions.    We have been ignoring the fact that we are guests on this planet.   We ARE NOT its owners.  

In recent years, our callous indifference to how Nature functions, our ignoring excessive human overpopulation, and our rampant environmental destruction have put us on the brink of several very serious, devastating and deadly, global-level disasters.   Fortunately, and as bad as they are, these problems are still solvable, but because we've waited so long to address these problems, they are solvable on for a very short time.   The window of opportunity will be closed and locked in less than five years.   You may not believe that our time to act is so short, but if you ignore this warning and pretend that we have more time and it turns out that we don't, you've just killed your children and grandchildren.   Is that the kind of bet you want to make?  

Unless we make major changes in our personal and collective behavior,  unless we (both the personal and the collective we) create a sustainable relationship to planet Earth, Mother Nature will dramatically reduce the human population.  

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Getting Back onto the Wheel of Life:   

Step one is to get back into sync with Nature.   Humans have been functioning as if life were a linear system with clear beginnings,  perceivable middles,  and finite ends.   Such a belief is a best naive, and at worst, deadly and suicidal.   

Everything is cyclical.   Nothing in Nature is linear.   Although we may not see the full cycle, nothing is linear in human behavior, either.   We never start anything!   We never end anything!   We always and only step into an existing cycle and alter it to suit our needs and desires.   When we are complete, we step back out of that cycle and if we haven't destroyed the context in which we were functioning, Nature restores its balance.   This is how every living thing functions on the entire planet.   It's Nature in action.  

By destroying our environment, we reduce and significantly interfere with, slow down, and often, dramatically change the way Nature recycles the end products that we create.   Unless we wake up right now, today ,we are about to pay the ultimate price for our ignorance and our apathy.   We  (both the personal and the collective we) have turned planet Earth into a cosmic version of the Titanic.  

So how do we take at least one small step in the opposite directions? How do we use Nature's rejuvenation process to transform polluted river water into safe, potable, drinking water.  

Nature Is the Ultimate Purifier: 

The statement "Form Toilet to Table" may sound pretty gross until you think about this concept from a much bigger and a much longer-term perspective than your mind is presently picturing (or smelling).   Again going back to the concept of nature as the ultimate purifier and recycler, every molecule of water you've ever drunk, has at one time or another, gone through the digestive track of some living creature.   It's not the water that's the problem, it's what's mixed in with the water that's the culprit.   Then the question is,  "How do we separate the good from the bad, blessings from the curses  the wheat from the chaff, the water from the pollutants?   

From a doable, tangible, measurable, let's-get-to-work perspective,   How to Convert Polluted Water into Potable Drinking Water.   First, we need to understand that we are not creating anything new.   We are adapting, adjusting, updating, and applying existing technology to tap into and make use of nature's recycling process.  

We are blessed with an incredible, natural system of purification.   In the very long-term, Nature can recycle and purify anything and everything.   From the perspective of a human lifetime, Nature's purification system seems incredible slow.   So where is the middle ground?  

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A system using large scale water evaporation beds and water condensation devices could and would provide clean water from just about any source of water.   The system uses the same, basic, scientific principles that the moonshiners use to produce alcohol.  

The major differences are in style, structure, and size.   Solar sources can be used to provide the energy needed.   The distilled water would need to be re-mineralized.