Worries about worsening water shortages have led to heightened interest in water recycling. The method can be simple, such as reusing water from the shower to flush toilets. Alternatively, water re-use can be technologically sophisticated, what with advances in membrane and filtering technology, to involve washing machines that can use water over and over again.
Actually, water reuse isn’t new. The early Greeks and Romans put wastewater – mainly sewage – to use as fertilizer in fields.
Modern wastewater technology can now make the foulest water potable. That and other possibilities led 30 years ago to the founding of the Water Reuse Association – an industry group that works toward expanded water reclamation.
The range of possibilities is impressive. Consider the field of activity of Sustainable Water, a Virginia-based firm that promotes its possibilities in healthcare, military bases, manufacturing, airports and more.
The prospects for water re-use aren’t restricted to large settings such as factories.
At its big annual innovation event last week in Las Vegas the Consumer Technology Association handed out a big award to a Dutch firm called Hydraloop for a domestic water recycling system that recycles 85 percent of water in the home, one effect being a 45 reduction in water consumption.
Then there are the sorts of things that you can do at home today, right now and without any technological wizardry, to recycle fresh water; (a) irrigate house plants with water from the home aquarium that you were planning to flush down the drain, (b) do the same thing with the water that you used last night to cook spaghetti or wash vegetables, (c) toss old ice cubes out on the lawn.
These and similar steps do more than give water a new use; they also reduce water consumption, which saves on the energy that it takes to provide fresh water to your home.
In a way, such steps mimic the natural movement of water on the planet. Water is always in motion as H2O molecules move from the liquid state in lakes to the evaporated state in clouds to the precipitation that brings the water back to earth and then perhaps down to subsurface aquifers only to be pumped out later for another round through the hydrologic cycle.
In sum: it’s one big water circle.