Reuse of treated industrial wastewater and bio-solids from oil and gas industries: Exploring new factors of public acceptance

Abstract The major hurdle to the implementation of wastewater treatment plants' byproducts reuse schemes resides in public's acceptance. This study explores the attitudes of people towards using recycled water and bio-solids generated from oil and gas industries through surveying an ethnically diverse population. Novel to this study is the interaction between age and education, which have not been investigated in depth. Moreover, this is the first study that explores the reason behind women's reluctance in reusing treated wastewater, as it looks at maternal and paternal altruism, promising parameters in predicting the acceptance level. Findings indicate that respondents are relatively optimistic in the reuse of TIW and bio-solids especially for low contact level applications. Furthermore, parental altruism has been demonstrated to be a factor to predict the acceptance of the public. Females with children are found to be less likely to accept the use of TIW for high contact level applications.