One of the biggest problems for reverse osmosis systems is the huge water wastage that occurs. This can’t be helped because the process essentially uses water to clean water. However, there are methods you can use to help recycle or reduce the waster water in order to improve water usage efficiency. Below are some of these methods you can easily use:

#1: Use a zero waste reverse osmosis system

If you have not bought any RO systems or in the midst of changing one, you can consider buying a zero waste reverse system. Such systems will basically funnel the waste water to other parts of the home so that it can be recycled.

If you already have a RO system in place, another way is to buy a zero waste reverse osmosis kit.  You can then install the kit to do exactly what a zero waste RO system can do without changing out the whole system.

#2: Buy a permeate pump

I am not too sure how this works but apparently, it can help to reuse some of the waste paper as well as reduce the pressure needed thus making the entire RO process more efficient.  The downside is that it can be a bit noisy when it is working but it is not too big a deal.

The pump also reduces the workload on the membrane filters, which means you can increase the longevity of the RO system. So, considering all these advantages, investing in a permeate pump seems to be a non brainer decision.

#3: Make sure your RO is off when tank is off

Sometimes, water wastage is caused by some unnecessary oversight. A common one is to check whether your RO is automatically shut off when the storage tank is full. If not, it will continue to use water even though it is not necessary.

The way to do this is to check if the auto shut off vault is working. You will first need to drain the tank of all the water. Then watch whether the discharge water is starting to flow to fill the rate. Once that is happening, turn off the vault. The water should stop when that is done. If not, you will have a faulty auto shut off vault that you need to replace to save water.

#4: Add more membrane filters

We all know reverse osmosis uses the water to clean water. So, it makes sense that to reduce such consumption, we need to have more filters to reduce the amount of water needed for the cleaning.  This is where adding a second membrane filter will help.

Of course, you can’t go on adding more filters due to diminishing returns. However, adding a second one might help to reduce the water wastage by as much as 30-40%. These membrane filters are cheap to purchase and easy to install. You should have no problem getting one and putting it to use on your reverse osmosis system.

 Conclusion

Most people hate wasting water, including me. This was why I try to mitigate against the large water wastage by the reverse osmosis system through a number of different mechanisms. I hope you find them useful as they are both easy to implement and effective.