{"id":566316,"date":"2026-03-28T10:04:23","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T10:04:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/566316\/"},"modified":"2026-03-28T10:04:23","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T10:04:23","slug":"what-if-a-solution-to-water-scarcity-lived-in-your-toilet-short-wave-npr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/566316\/","title":{"rendered":"What if a solution to water scarcity lived in your toilet? : Short Wave : NPR"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n Wastewater is cleansed in the preliminary stage of recycling at the West Basin Municipal Water District water recycling facility in El Segundo, Calif.<\/p>\n

Robyn Beck\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

hide caption\n <\/p>\n

toggle caption<\/p>\n

Robyn Beck\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Would you drink recycled wastewater? It could be a solution to the global water crisis. But not everyone is ready to jump onboard. They say it’s not technology that’s keeping more cities from recycling their wastewater, but psychology. Experts call this resistance “the yuck factor.” We chat with water journalist Peter Annin<\/a> about some history behind water recycling \u2013 and why more cities could adopt the solution soon.<\/p>\n

This is part of a whole series on the world’s dwindling water supply. Check out the rest of the water series:<\/p>\n

Part 1<\/a>: When the wells run dryPart 2<\/a>: The world’s groundwater problemPart 3<\/a>: Freshwater’s growing salt problem <\/p>\n

Email us your questions about water, the wider environment \u2013 or anything else to do with science at\u00a0shortwave@npr.org<\/a>. We may turn it into an episode in the future!<\/p>\n

Listen to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at NPR by signing up for Short Wave+ at\u00a0plus.npr.org\/shortwave<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Listen to Short Wave on\u00a0Spotify<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Apple Podcasts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This episode was produced by Rachel Carlson. It was edited by Rebecca Ramirez. Aru Nair checked the facts. The audio engineer was Jimmy Keeley.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wastewater is cleansed in the preliminary stage of recycling at the West Basin Municipal Water District water recycling…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":566317,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,295,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-566316","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-environment","11":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=566316"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566316\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/566317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=566316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=566316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=566316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}