[marshray]

This is probably far enough away that we can get a little handwavey about little details like contamination.

What if instead of a water heater you had a plastic heater in your house? What if it had some section where the temp was high enough to kill organisms or used other means?

Still it seems like I'd want to give them a quick rinse-off first.

Perhaps everyone's eating utensils will end up some shade of brown. :-P People would likely want some very dark pigments added. Or "junior! we told you not to put Froot Loops in the dishmelter again..."

Or maybe the stuff just gets hauled off for recycling where it can be re-purified efficiently in large scale processes.