About Recycled Water

Reclaiming its Reputation
Recycling is an important and integral part of our efforts to preserve the environment. We are encouraged to recycle cans, plastic, glass and just about everything else. After all, it’s the right thing to do.

Yet, when it comes to recycling water, there seems to be some hesitation or what some people describe as the “yuck factor.” The idea of taking wastewater (used water from homes) and cleaning it for reuse can bring out the skeptic in even the most informed members of our community.


“All the water that is on Earth today is the same amount which was there yesterday and the same amount which will be there in the future.”


So, why are some people unwilling to accept and believe in a process that Mother Nature has been doing since the beginning of time? Lack of information and abundance of misconceptions have been the biggest obstacles in our efforts to truly understanding the safety and quality of recycled water. After you read this article, we hope that you will see the value and importance of recycling water.

“All the water that is on Earth today is the same amount which was there yesterday and the same amount which will be there in the future.”

All the water we have today is the same water that there was since the days of the dinosaurs. There is no such thing as “new water.” So, for billions of years, Earth has been cleaning and reusing water over and over again.

It’s called the hydrologic cycle or is more commonly known as the water cycle. In school, we learned how the rain falls (precipitation) to the earth and when the sun comes out, the water evaporates to the sky (evaporation) to form clouds (condensation). When the clouds become heavy with moisture, it rains again, and the cycle repeats itself. And look at our groundwater drinking water supply. When the rain percolates through the layers of soil to natural underground pockets called aquifers, the water is being filtered naturally through layers of sand and becomes clean enough for us to drink.

Through this natural process, Earth has and continues to recycle or clean the water. And we all agree that Earth has been doing a good job, and we have no qualms about drinking the water.

After all, when it rains, you don’t see people running away in fear for their health. With modern technological advancements and extensive research, we have learned how to mimic this natural process of cleaning water and to do it at a much faster rate. Water recycling employs the same principle as the hydrologic cycle but with greater efficiency.

What it ultimately means is that all water, including our drinking water, has been cleaned or recycled at some point. Thanks to advancements in technology, we are now able to perform advance water treatments that exceed state and federal drinking water standards. Microfiltration and reverse osmosis are the most advanced stages of water treatment.

During the microfiltration process, water is pressurized through pipes containing straw-like fibers with pores that are 5,000 times smaller than a pinhole. In reverse osmosis, water is pressurized at about 800 pounds per square inch (equivalent to 800 lbs. pressing on every square inch of your body) through tightly wound layers of membranes with pores that are 5 million times smaller than a pinhole! To date, reverse osmosis is the most advanced filtration process, surpassing even the Earth’s miraculous natural ability.

The first phase, or primary treatment, begins when the wastewater reaches the sewage treatment plant. During this phase, solids are removed from the water. The water then undergoes secondary treatment where tiny dirt-loving micro-organisms are added.

These micro-organisms, found naturally in rivers and other bodies of water, eat particles that are too small to see or too light to settle. Once these organisms get full and heavy, they fall to the bottom leaving cleaner water to rise to the surface. Then, during tertiary treatment, the water goes through a filtration process where the water moves through layers of fine anthracite coal, sand and gravel which trap microscopic particles. The man-made filtration process simulates natural underground seepage occurring in aquifers. In addition, disinfectants such as chlorine are added to kill germs. Tertiary water is used mostly for landscape irrigation and various industrial and commercial uses.

Water recycling is a proven natural process that has been occurring for billions of years, and today, we have been able to replicate this cycle and even improve on it to produce safe and high quality water.

Why is it important to recycle?
About 75% of Earth is covered by water. It sounds like a lot, but only 1% of that is freshwater available for serving the water needs of more than 6.6 billion people in the world today. Because of drought and pollution, that 1% is slowly dwindling. To make matters worse, the world population continues to grow, thus increasing the demand for water. Now, to bring it closer to home, in Southern California, more than 66% of our water supply is imported from outside the region.

During the next 15 years, California must reduce its imported water supply by nearly 1 million acre-feet (one acre-foot equals 326,000 gallons), but our population continues to rise. In a nutshell, as the available water supply is decreasing, the demand for water is increasing. You can see the problem. To ensure that we have enough water to meet our present and future needs, we need to conserve water and expand the use of recycled water.

In essence, by expanding the use of recycled water, we are actually helping to conserve our drinking water supplies.

There’s also an added big bonus. Recycled water is good for the environment. Without recycling, secondary treated sewage water would be discharged directly into our oceans – affecting the marine life. By recycling, less water is discharged, improving the environmental condition of our coastal waters.