The Ultimate (re)cycle

We intend to drink purified water coming from the great oceans. But a simple recylce which is not so simple can make you forget that the pure water you drink might be your neighbour's pee.

99% of everything we use is water. Even 90% of what we don't use and throw away like your urine is water. Each time you flush, the sewer system ferries your waste—along with 1.6 to 7 gallons of perfectly good H2O used to swirl it down your porcelain throne—to a treatment plant designed to make it taste delicious.

Treatment plants employ a series of mesh screens to catch rocks, sticks, and other—ahem—larger refuse floating in your former toilet juice. Finer debris sinks down to the bottom of deep pools, while the top layer flows through. Some municipalities also add chemicals that clump crud together, which makes it easier to catch and remove stowaway stools.

Activated sludge, the mushy mix of bacteria actually helps break down organic contaminants .A good stir swirls and sloshes the sludge through giant vats.When it settles, it leaves behind purified liquid that can then be disinfected for use in irrigation or other industrial applications. But you wouldn’t want to drink the stuff (at least not yet).

100 million gallons of water is recycled in Orange County, California evey single day

After another round of filtration for good measure, the good stuff makes its way through strawlike fibers. Pressure forces water through pores so small that only individual molecules can fit, ensuring that only a pure hydrogen-oxygen cocktail crosses over the membrane. This process, called reverse osmosis, makes former toilet contents pristine and drinkable.

People don’t like the idea of drinking recycled pee, so the now-pristine liquid goes back into natural reservoirs to mix with droplets from rain and rivers. It can stay there indefinitely, gathering minerals from rocks and soil, and going through natural filtration processes until it’s called back into action.

After sitting pretty in the reservoir for who knows how long, all that agua needs another round of filtration before it’s safe to drink again. Then a disinfectant like chlorine kills microbes. The result whooshes out through your tap, into a glass, and down your gullet—and so the cycle begins anew.

Pure water is the world's first and foremost medicine!

#water #recycle #savewater