Do RO systems waste water a lot?Easy solutions for save water at home.

Okay, so I’ve been seeing a lot of talk online about how much water RO systems waste. I finally decided to see for myself just how bad it really is. I mean, I love my pure water, but I also don’t want to be a massive water waster, you know?

Getting Started

First, I grabbed a couple of buckets. One was a bigger one, probably about 5 gallons, and the other was a smaller, 1-gallon bucket. I figured these would be good for catching and measuring the water.

I went under my sink where my RO system is. And locate the drain line, it usually a smaller tube that goes to your sink’s drainpipe.

The Test

I put the big bucket under the drain line. This is where the “waste” water goes. Then, I put the smaller bucket under the faucet that gives me the purified water. My Goal is see how much waste water is created to make one gallon of good, drinkable water.

I turned on the RO faucet and just let it run. Both buckets started to fill up, but Man! the big bucket(waste) was filling up way faster than the smaller one(pure water).

The Results

I kept a close watch, When the smaller bucket got to about 1 gallon, I turned off the faucet. Then came the moment of truth… I looked at the big bucket. Wow, It was pretty much full. I’d say a good 4 gallons, maybe a bit more, of wastewater were made, just to get that one gallon of purified water.

My Thoughts

Honestly, seeing it firsthand like that was kind of a shock. I knew there was some waste, but 4 to 1? That seems like a lot! I’m definitely going to look into ways to maybe reuse some of that wastewater. Maybe for watering plants or something. It just feels wrong to let it all go down the drain, literally.

So, yeah, that’s my little experiment. RO systems do waste a good amount of water, at least in my case. It’s something to think about if you’re using one or planning to get one. Maybe there are more efficient models out there, I’ll have to do some research!