I've always felt that there must be some practical way to keep our bodily wastes completely separated from our (potentially) potable water supplies. Dr. Retardo, below, doesn't seem to realize the irony of his comment.

When I went to Japan as a young G.I., there were open sewers on many of the streets - the infamous Benjo Ditches, and we were warned about the use of "night soil" for fertilizer in gardens and on farms. And then there were the "honey bucket" trucks that came around to suck it up, so to say. Over time, the sanitary situation improved noticeably, even in the smaller towns, as Japan began to approach Western standards for sanitation and plumbing.

Nevertheless, we now spend a lot of money cleaning up our waste products so we can dump the result back into our rivers, streams, and reservorrs.

Ideas?

S