essay on recycled water

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Basic Information about Water Reuse

Basics of water reuse, types of water reuse, uses for recycled water, water reuse regulations in the united states.

Water reuse (also commonly known as water recycling or water reclamation) reclaims water from a variety of sources then treats and reuses it for beneficial purposes such as agriculture and irrigation, potable water supplies, groundwater replenishment, industrial processes, and environmental restoration. Water reuse can provide alternatives to existing water supplies and be used to enhance water security, sustainability, and resilience.

Water reuse can be defined as planned or unplanned. Unplanned water reuse refers to situations in which a source of water is substantially composed of previously-used water. A common example of unplanned water reuse occurs when communities draw their water supplies from rivers, such as the Colorado River and the Mississippi River, that receive treated wastewater discharges from communities upstream.

Planned water reuse refers to water systems designed with the goal of beneficially reusing a recycled water supply. Often, communities will seek to optimize their overall water use by reusing water to the extent possible within the community, before the water is reintroduced to the environment. Examples of planned reuse include agricultural and landscape irrigation, industrial process water, potable water supplies, and groundwater supply management.

Sources of water for potential reuse can include municipal wastewater, industry process and cooling water, stormwater, agriculture runoff and return flows, and produced water from natural resource extraction activities. These sources of water are adequately treated to meet “fit-for-purpose specifications” for a particular next use.  "Fit-for-purpose specifications” are the treatment requirements to bring water from a particular source to the quality needed, to ensure public health, environmental protection, or specific user needs. For example, reclaimed water for crop irrigation would need to be of sufficient quality to prevent harm to plants and soils, maintain food safety, and protect the health of farm workers. In uses where there is a greater human exposure water may require more treatment.

• Irrigation for agriculture
• Irrigation for landscaping such as parks, rights-of-ways, and golf courses
• Municipal water supply
• Process water for power plants, refineries, mills, and factories
• Indoor uses such as toilet flushing
• Dust control or surface cleaning of roads, construction sites, and other trafficked areas
• Concrete mixing and other construction processes
• Supplying artificial lakes and inland or coastal aquifers
• Environmental restoration

EPA does not require or restrict any type of reuse. Generally, states maintain primary regulatory authority (i.e., primacy) in allocating and developing water resources. Some states have established programs to specifically address reuse, and some have incorporated water reuse into their existing programs. EPA, states, tribes, and local governments implement programs under the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Clean Water Act to protect the quality of drinking water source waters, community drinking water, and waterbodies like rivers and lakes. Together, the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Clean Water Act provide a foundation from which states can enable, regulate, and oversee water reuse as they deem appropriate.

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The cleanest drinking water is recycled

Recycled wastewater is not only as safe to drink as conventional potable water, it may even be less toxic than many sources of water we already drink daily, Stanford University engineers have discovered.

“We expected that potable reuse waters would be cleaner, in some cases, than conventional drinking water due to the fact that much more extensive treatment is conducted for them,” said Stanford professor William Mitch , senior author of an Oct. 27 study in Nature Sustainability comparing conventional drinking water samples to wastewater purified as a drinking water, also known as potable reuse water. “But we were surprised that in some cases the quality of the reuse water, particularly the reverse-osmosis-treated waters, was comparable to groundwater, which is traditionally considered the highest quality water.”

As drinking water sources become more scarce, the discovery is promising news for a thirsty public and utility companies struggling to keep up with demand. 

Why recycle

Several potable reuse systems are up and running around the United States. The Orange County Water District has run the world’s largest water recycling plant since the 1970s. Water providers in Atlanta, Georgia, and Aurora, Colorado, also use potable reuse water as part of their drinking water supplies. Los Angeles plans to recycle all of its wastewater by 2035. 

But decades of drought have intensified the urgency to make recycling wastewater as common as recycling an empty can of La Croix. Water utilities, particularly those in the drought-stricken western U.S., are scrambling to find reliable water supplies. Traditional water sources from places such as the Colorado River and Sierra Nevada snowmelt have dried up. Instead, utilities have set their sights on potable reuse as a dependable water supply – one that utilities already conveniently manage and own. 

“There are additional benefits beyond a secure water supply. If you're not relying on importing water, that means there's more water for ecosystems in northern California or Colorado,” said Mitch, a professor of civil and environmental engineering in Stanford Engineering and the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability . “You're cleaning up the wastewater, and therefore you're not discharging wastewater and potential contaminants to California's beaches.” 

Cleaning up recycled water is also known to cost a lot less and require less energy than plucking the salt out of seawater. 

Clean-up crew

The engineers found that, after treatment, potable reuse water is cleaner than conventional drinking water sourced from pristine-looking rivers. In most rivers, someone upstream is dumping in their wastewater with much less treatment than occurs in potable reuse systems. Conventional wastewater treatment plants just aren’t equipped to deep clean. This leaves many organic contaminants, such as chemicals from shampoos and medicines, floating down river and straight into a drinking water plant.

Regulators demand more extensive treatment at potable reuse treatment plants. They specify that treatment systems must remove harmful pathogens, such as viruses and amoebas, and utilities flush out other contaminants using reverse osmosis, ozonation, biofiltration, and other cleaning techniques.

Reverse osmosis treatment pushes water at high pressure through a filter that's so small, it squeezes out even sodium and chloride. Mitch and his colleagues discovered the process cleans wastewater as much if not more than groundwater, the gold standard. 

Even when reverse osmosis wasn’t applied, reuse waters were less toxic than the samples of conventional drinking waters sourced from rivers across the United States.

Policy solutions for overlooked contaminants 

The Environmental Protection Agency aims to protect people from toxic drinking water by regulating a slew of chemicals. But some of the stuff floating in our water has yet to be identified or categorized by scientists. 

In order to suss out the toxicity of different sources of tap water, the researchers applied water from various sources to hamster ovary cells, because they act similarly to human cells. Mitch and his colleagues looked at whether cells slowed or stopped growing, compared to untreated cells. “Ideally, we picked up the effects of chemicals specifically measured by the EPA, as well as those that aren’t,” Mitch said.

The engineers discovered the compounds regulated by the EPA accounted for less than 1% of the harm to the ovary cells. 

“Even if we include all these other unregulated compounds that a lot of us in this field have been focusing on, that still accounted for only about 16% of the total,” Mitch said. “It really says we're not necessarily focusing on the right contaminants.”

The culprits may be associated with disinfection. No matter where your tap water comes from, it will carry residual disinfectant to prevent pathogens growing in the pipes. Disinfectants like chlorine react with chemicals in the water and convert them to something else, and that may be what’s killing the hamster cells. 

The EPA regulates disinfection byproducts, but not all. “Our study indicates that maybe the toxicity exerted by these byproducts regulated by the government may not be so important.” 

Mitch says his team plans to further investigate whether other side effects from disinfecting water could be causing toxicity. His team is looking specifically at larger byproducts formed when disinfectants mix with pesticides, proteins, or other organic matter. 

Disinfecting water is necessary: Without it, we’d die from cholera and other waterborne diseases. But Mitch notes that disinfection is a balancing act between killing pathogens and minimizing exposure to harmful byproducts.

“We can't get to zero contaminants. That would be ridiculously expensive, and probably unwarranted from a health point of view,” he said. 

Whatever you do, Mitch warned, don’t stock your fridge with bottles of water. That plastic taste in bottled water tells you compounds from the plastic have migrated into the water, he said.

"At the end of the day, yes, there's stuff in everything, but the reuse water quality is as good as tap water, which is pretty darn good."

First study author Stephanie Lau is a postdoctoral scholar in civil and environmental engineering at Stanford. Additional co-authors are affiliated with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. 

This research was supported by the National Science Foundation and the Water Research Foundation.

Related:   William Mitch , professor of civil and environmental engineering

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Scaling up water reuse: Why recycling our wastewater makes sense

Nico saporiti, elleanor robins.

In Durban, South Africa’s third largest city, an amount of wastewater equivalent to 13 Olympic-sized swimming pools has been treated and reused for industrial use by a paper mill and a local refinery every day since 2001.

A public-private partnership (PPP) between the city and a private environmental services company made this achievement possible. And it is a good example of how wastewater reuse is helping some cities address critical water shortages.

Wastewater reuse — recycling and reusing water from our sewerage systems — may prompt what is quite simply known as the “yuck” factor. People are naturally squeamish about the idea of reusing water that comes from our toilets, even though it’s actually quite common. Wastewater reuse has been around for thousands of years .

In London, a significant portion of the drinking water is indirectly recycled through the River Thames, the main water source for the British capital.  This is also being done in Windhoek, Namibia, where a direct potable reuse scheme has been operating since 1965.

In other places, such as India, Singapore, Mexico and Spain, reused water can provide a valuable water source for key industries, reducing the demand on limited water resources. Power plants, refineries, mills, and factories, including, for instance, those in the auto industry , can use reused water.  

The need is great. Not only do some 4.2 billion people around the world lack access to safely managed sanitation services, but 80 percent of global wastewater is not adequately treated. As much as 36 percent of the global population lives in water-scarce areas, and water demand is expected to rise to 55 percent by 2050 amid rapid urbanization.

At the same time, climate change is creating greater unpredictability and variability in the availability of fresh water. The United Nations estimates that 1.8 billion people will be living in countries or regions with absolute water scarcity by 2025, with Sub Saharan Africa counting the largest number of water-stressed countries of any region.

The COVID-19 pandemic has heightened awareness of both the extent and consequences of the lack of access to a reliable water supply, and has had an impact on the ability of water utilities to make necessary capital investments.  Countries affected by conflict and social fragility are especially vulnerable to water challenges and a deterioration of water services.

All of this matters because, as the World Bank says , gaps in access to water supply and sanitation are among the greatest risks to economic progress, poverty eradication and sustainable development.

Municipal waste and water is also an investment opportunity. An IFC analysis found that if cities in emerging markets focused on low-carbon water and waste as part of their post-COVID recovery, they would catalyze as much as $2 trillion in investments, and create over 23 million new jobs by 2030.

"An IFC analysis found that if cities in emerging markets focused on low-carbon water and waste as part of their post-COVID recovery, they would catalyze as much as $2 trillion in investments, and create over 23 million new jobs by 2030."

The circular economy approach of reusing treated wastewater has potential benefits for millions of people.  It can provide a reliable water source for industrial, agricultural and — occasionally — potable uses, often at lower investment costs and with lower energy use than alternative sources, such as desalination or inter-basin water transfers.

IFC estimates that the cost of producing non-potable recycled water can be as low as $0.32 per cubic meter, and potable water $0.45, compared with more than $0.50 for desalination. 

Treatment of wastewater coupled with effluent reuse also has important direct climate benefits. In many cases, treating sewage water helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions, particularly methane. A well-designed wastewater project allows for better sludge management solutions, such as methane capture and energy generation, which help mitigate the greenhouse gas emissions coming from plants’ operations.

Moreover, water reuse can contribute to helping cities adapt to climate change by providing an additional and sustainable source of fresh water. 

"Water reuse can contribute to helping cities adapt to climate change by providing an additional and sustainable source of fresh water."

The majority of desalination projects globally are privately developed and financed. Yet, as national and local governments in emerging markets continue to face significant gaps in meeting water and sanitation needs and budgetary constraints, well-structured PPPs in wastewater treatment and reuse are increasingly seen as a viable option.

Water reuse projects do come with particular challenges. For one thing, water is a local matter and no one project is like another. Water is also typically managed at a decentralized level, where local utilities may lack resources and capacity, while perceptions of high risk and cost of capital can also raise concerns.

IFC sees an enormous opportunity to assist in this area. Through our new World Bank Group Scaling ReWater initiative, IFC is helping address barriers to investment in wastewater treatment and reuse, while also taking into account affordability concerns. 

Scaling ReWater is a toolkit offering transaction advice, competitive financing solutions, a more straightforward tendering process and a holistic approach designed to mobilize hybrid financing from public and private sources. Our overall objective is to leverage private capital to accelerate the construction of wastewater treatment plants in emerging markets. The World Bank Group welcomes the opportunity to work with our partners to achieve this.

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Why Is it Important to Recycle Water?

Pros & Cons of Recycling Water

Water that is on the Earth today is the same water that was here when the Earth began. This is possible because of recycled water, both naturally occurring and as a result of human technology. The Earth naturally reuses its water; however, water recycling in the human population uses technology to speed up the process through practices like reusing waste water for purposes such as irrigation, flushing a toilet or filling up a groundwater basin. Another common form of water recycling is industrial recycling, where an industrial facility will reuse "waste" water on site for processes such as cooling. One of the key advantages of recycling water is that it reduces the need for water to be removed from natural habitats such as wetlands.

Environmental Benefits of Recycling Water

When you recycle the water that you use in your area, this means that you do not have to take water from other areas. Many areas where pure water is plentiful are delicate ecosystems that suffer when their water is removed. When the water is recycled, it makes it easy for places like the wetlands to keep their water supplies.

More Advantages of Recycling Wastewater

Many times, recycling water not only prevents its removal from sensitive environments, but it keeps wastewater from going into bodies of water such as ocean or rivers. Recycling water takes wastewater such as sewage and reuses it, instead of routing it directly into the nearest river or ocean where it could spread pollution and disrupt the aquatic life.

Increases Irrigation Benefits

While wastewater can be severely damaging to rivers and oceans, the Environmental Protection Agency advises that recycled water often contains properties that are extremely beneficial to irrigating and fertilizing fields. Recycled water often contains high levels of nitrogen, which, while bad for aquatic life, is a required nutrient for plants.

Improves Wetlands

The wetlands provide many benefits to the environment, such as housing wildlife, diminishing floods, improving the quality of the water and providing a safe breeding ground for fish populations. Many times, recycled water can be added to the dried wetlands, helping them to once again thrive into a lush habitat.

Provides Future Water Supply

When you take water from the rivers and oceans to use for things such as irrigation and wetlands, you use up part of the drinking water supply. When you recycle water and use that instead, you minimize the potential loss of drinking water. This leaves the maximum amount of water possible for future generations to use for their drinking needs.

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• Environmental Protection Agency: Water Recycling and Reuse-The Environmental Benefits

About the Author

Allison Michelle holds a degree in journalism from Patrick Henry College. Her writing has appeared in the Loudoun-Times Mirror, Patrol Magazine and the Washington Post's Loudoun Extra.

Find Your Next Great Science Fair Project! GO

Essay on Water Recycling

Students are often asked to write an essay on Water Recycling in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Water Recycling

What is water recycling.

Water recycling is the process of cleaning used water so it can be used again. This is important because clean water is limited, and we need to save as much as we can. By recycling water, we make sure we don’t waste it.

How Water is Recycled

The recycling process involves several steps. First, the dirty water is collected. Then, it goes through cleaning processes to remove any harmful stuff. After it’s clean, the water is safe to use again for things like watering plants or flushing toilets.

Benefits of Water Recycling

Recycling water helps the environment by saving our clean water sources. It also reduces the amount of waste water that ends up in rivers and oceans, which can harm animals and plants. Plus, it’s a smart way to make sure we have enough water for the future.

250 Words Essay on Water Recycling

Water recycling is the process of cleaning and reusing wastewater. Wastewater can come from many different places, including homes, businesses, and factories. It can be recycled for many different purposes, including irrigation, industrial uses, and even drinking water.

Why is Water Recycling Important?

How is water recycled.

Water is recycled through a process called wastewater treatment. Wastewater treatment plants use a variety of processes to clean wastewater. These processes can include screening, sedimentation, and disinfection. Once the wastewater has been cleaned, it can be reused for many different purposes.

There are many benefits to water recycling. Water recycling can help to conserve water, reduce pollution, and save money. Water recycling can also help to create jobs and stimulate the economy.

Water recycling is a vital part of water conservation. By recycling water, we can help to protect this precious resource for future generations. Water recycling is also a cost-effective way to provide clean water for a variety of purposes.

500 Words Essay on Water Recycling

Why water recycling.

Water is one of the most essential elements for life on Earth. But, did you know that there is only a limited amount of freshwater available to us? In fact, over 97% of the water on Earth is salt water, which we can’t drink or use for agriculture. As the world’s population continues to grow, so does our demand for freshwater. This is why water recycling is becoming increasingly important.

Simply put, water recycling is the process of treating wastewater so that it can be reused. We can recycle water in many ways, but the most common method is called “secondary treatment.” In secondary treatment, wastewater is treated with bacteria to remove harmful bacteria and viruses. The treated water can then be used for irrigation, industrial purposes, or even to recharge groundwater supplies.

How Water Recycling Works

Water recycling involves several steps. First, wastewater is collected from homes and businesses. It is then taken to a wastewater treatment plant, where it is treated to remove harmful bacteria and viruses. The treated water can then be used for irrigation, industrial purposes, or even to recharge groundwater supplies.

Water recycling is a vital tool for conserving water and reducing pollution. As the world’s population continues to grow, so does our demand for freshwater. Water recycling helps to ensure that we have enough water to meet our needs, while also protecting the environment.

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• Published: 22 March 2021

Sustainable implementation of innovative technologies for water purification

• Bart Van der Bruggen   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-3921-7472 1 , 2  

Nature Reviews Chemistry volume  5 ,  pages 217–218 ( 2021 ) Cite this article

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One of the sustainable development goals set by the United Nations General Assembly is to ensure the availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all. This requires investment in water purification technologies. World Water Day offers an opportunity to discuss whether such investment will help achieve this laudable goal.

Wastewater and seawater have long been considered as potential sources from which to produce freshwater. Several technologies have been developed over the past few decades aimed at their reuse and recycle, but unfortunately the treatment of both sources may have perfidious effects.

Of the approaches presently available, desalination seems to have the greatest potential, given that seawater is a nearly unlimited resource. However, desalination is an energy-intensive process. The state-of-the-art technology, seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO), has undergone huge improvements over the past five decades: the specific energy consumption of SWRO was reduced from 20 kWh m −3 in 1970 to only 2.5 kWh m −3 in 2010. It has been estimated that a further 0.69–0.79 kWh m −3 might be saved by a smart process integration with intrinsic heat recovery 1 , but desalination of typical seawater (with an average salt concentration of 35 g l −1 ) requires a minimum of 1.07 kWh m −3 , offering only a little room for improvement. This limit is the foundation of the water–energy nexus and prompts further research on renewable energy sources for desalination, which remain scarce. In a case study, Delgado-Torres and co-workers 2 used tidal and solar energy for desalination at a semi-arid location in Broome, Australia. Similar studies focus on desalination driven by wind energy, photovoltaics or solar thermal energy. Although such approaches to water desalination may be viable to supply clean water in small or spatially confined communities — as was demonstrated in the island of Aruba 3 — they offer very little for the water challenges of large cities such as Beijing, Cairo or Cape Town.

In a cost–benefit analysis, wastewater recycling is more favourable than seawater desalination, because the former does not require the expensive separation of salts from water. This may seem surprising given that reverse osmosis is the key technology in both cases. The difference is that wastewater recycling would operate at much lower pressure. Such recycling has been practised for more than half a century in Windhoek, Namibia, and is accepted practice in water-scarce places such as Singapore 4 . Southern California is presently implementing a large-scale scheme to use recycled water as a potable source 5 and other countries and locations will surely follow. This trend pushes researchers to develop fouling-resistant, high-flux membranes for reverse osmosis and related membrane processes such as nano- or ultrafiltration. However, new challenges also arise. The production of (polymer) membranes for purification typically requires the use of polar aprotic solvents such as N,N -dimethylformamide (DMF), N,N -dimethylacetamide (DMA), 1,4-dioxane and tetrahydrofuran (THF). These solvents have a considerable environmental impact and significant effort is invested in their replacement with ‘greener’ solvents such as organic carbonates 6 or dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) 7 . Another limitation for present membrane technologies lies in the availability, processing and scale-up of materials for their manufacture. For example, two 2006 reports describe how incorporating carbon nanotubes into membranes affords permeabilities one to two orders of magnitude larger than those of conventional membranes. However, scaling up the synthesis of such membranes was not expected to be easy 8 — and, indeed, it has, so far, not happened. Since these reports emerged, there have been numerous studies on mixed-matrix membranes combining other nanostructures with polymeric matrices but, thus far, none has yet been applied on a large scale. Typically, good results are obtained in the laboratory, but the cost of producing the required nanostructures or issues associated with toxicity or leaching of nanoparticles from membranes have proven prohibitive for industrial use. Researchers need to place greater focus on the development of realistic membranes rather than just better membranes.

Closing the water cycle by either desalination or wastewater purification promises to provide virtually unlimited volumes of freshwater: in principle, it would enable an increase in water consumption by a factor equal to the inverse of the recycled fraction. However, we must be cognizant of unintended consequences. Water availability is one of the limiting factors for population growth and greater availability would certainly stimulate population growth. History has shown that humankind naturally makes use of available resources, sometimes with dramatic consequences, as exemplified by the agricultural and industrial revolutions 9 . A historical, sociological and demographic analysis by Harari shows that if water recycling is practised on a large scale, water consumption per capita may remain the same but our population will grow by the inverse of the recycled fraction 9 . This would then automatically lead to new challenges. A disenchanting example is the present SARS-CoV-2 virus: the scale of the outbreak would have been much more contained in a modest, local society without overpopulation. Water technologies may catalyse global growth more than any other technology because water is one of very few commodities that humankind cannot do without. This is of course not the case for industrialized countries, where water is not a limiting factor, but in most parts of the world it is. Harari was criticized for being unfamiliar with technologies, and, while this may be a fair criticism, warnings from other disciplines should not be summarily dismissed by technology developers.

In conclusion, the scope of water technologies may need to be reconsidered. There is no need for a major technological breakthrough in water recycling or desalination. What is really needed is for present technologies to be available to children growing up without access to clean water sources, as stated in the United Nations sustainable development goals . This will require dedicated, embedded actions towards maintaining the demographic status quo while respecting the basic human rights of all. The goals then are a useful tool to monitor progress but must be considered in context because the indicators that are used can result in tunnel vision 10 . Furthermore, lifestyle choices in terms of water — reduce, reuse and recycle — need to be thoroughly considered and be more than just a hollow slogan.

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Van der Bruggen, B. Sustainable implementation of innovative technologies for water purification. Nat Rev Chem 5 , 217–218 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41570-021-00264-7

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Recycling and Reuse for Water Conservation

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• Nataša Petrović 6 &
• Jelena Andreja Radaković 6  

Part of the book series: Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals ((ENUNSDG))

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Dependable source of water supply ; Minimize water wastage ; Reclamation of wastewater ; Reduce water ; Reduce water wastage ; Renewable source of water ; Reusing treated wastewater ; Sustainable water use ; Water preservation ; Water resources management

Definitions

The term recycling assumes the renewal of waste materials through using waste as a raw material (secondary material), so it represents the change of materials from waste into materials that can be used again.

Recycling represents a process in which waste is repurposed into products, materials, or substances. The products can now serve for their original or other means, including the reproduction of organic materials, except for reuse for energy purposes and reprocessing into materials intended for use as fuel or to cover landfills. This process includes collecting, separating, i.e., sorting, processing, and producing new products from used parts or materials.

When it comes to reusing, this process is more environmentally...

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Petrović, N., Radaković, J.A. (2022). Recycling and Reuse for Water Conservation. In: Leal Filho, W., Azul, A.M., Brandli, L., Lange Salvia, A., Wall, T. (eds) Clean Water and Sanitation. Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95846-0_6

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Essay on Recycling for Students and Children

500+ words essay on recycling.

Recycling is a method of procedure that includes the collection and breaking down of waste material to create something new out of it. The process was introduced sot that the non-biodegradable materials can be melted or break down to create something useful. After the effects of global warming and pollution have become known to men the process of recycling has become more important.

Why We Need Recycling?

We need recycling for many reasons. But most importantly, it will help us to save our planet. Besides, recycling saves the earth by facilitating the reprocess of paper which will save millions of trees.

Also, recycling saves a lot of energy because many things that we recycle can easily be converted into virgin materials. In addition, it saves a lot of resources too.

Moreover, recycling reduces the burden of the environment. As we save energy the number of greenhouse gases and oxides are produced in less quantity. Because most of the toxic gases are produced by factories.

In addition, recycling reduces the amount of waste, that takes years to decompose. Also, the recycled material can be sold. We use this recycled material for the manufacturing of many new products. So, ultimately recycling saves money.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

The Process of Recycling

The various materials that we recycle have to go through a process that refines and purifies them. Besides, different materials go through a different process and in this topic we will discuss the recycling process of various materials.

Paper- It is the most used material on the earth. Paper is made up of two materials water and wood. For recycling paper firstly they break it down in small pieces and dissolve it into water. After that, they add chemicals that filter out the ink and dirt from it. In addition after filtering the paper takes the form of a mush called the pulp and this pulp is later converted into clean paper.

Metals-  The metals are first shredded into small pieces and then they were melted and after that remolded into new shapes.

Glass- The recycling of glass is the easier they just break it into pieces and then they melt it and recast them.

Plastic- They also follow the same process as plastic. But, the process of plastic recycling is a little bit complex because they have to sort out the different types of plastics. As there is a diverse variety of plastic with different properties.

How Can We Contribute to Recycling?

Almost everything that we use can be recycled whether it is household materials like paper, plastic, metal, glass, furniture, toys, artifacts, vehicles, etc. Besides, opt for things from the market that can easily be recycled. Also, try to use merchandise that is made up of recycled products.

In addition, sort your waste and dump your recyclable waste in the recycle bin so that the authorities can recycle it.

To Sum it up, recycling is a small step by humans to save the environment . But this small step is very effective in the long run. Also, before throwing away the waste we should check it to see if there is a recyclable product in it or not.

FAQs about Essay on Recycling

Q.1 List some benefits of recycling. A.1 There are many benefits to recycling like:

• It reduces the amount of waste produced by us.
• Conserves natural resources such as water, wood, and minerals.
• It prevents the overuse of resources and helps in preserving them.
• In addition, it saves energy.

Q.2 Give an important fact related to recycling. A.2 An important fact can be that recycling reduces the amount of waste which goes to landfills. Also, lesser density in landfill means less amount of methane and other gases is released into the air.

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Home — Essay Samples — Environment — Recycling — The Impact of Recycling on Sustainability and Waste Reduction

The Impact of Recycling on Sustainability and Waste Reduction

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Waste reduction and conservation of natural resources, pollution reduction, innovative recycling practices, application across different contexts, 1. using recycled materials, 2. reducing packaging waste, 3. using renewable energy, public policy.

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Safety of Recycled Water for Drinking Essay

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Introduction

Whether recycled water is safe for drinking.

Water recycling is the process by which individuals harness, treat and reuse water for various purposes. It may occur through water reclamation. This involves the treatment of sewage effluent for domestic and commercial use. Alternatively, recycled water may come from storm water or rain water.

Potable use is the human consumption of recycled water while planned reuse refers to deliberate treatment of wastewater for other uses. Recycled water holds a lot of promise in the field of agriculture and industry, but its application as a potable source is still quite contentious, limited and risky.

The question of whether recycled water is safe for drinking is of high relevance to a discussion on water-borne diseases because raw waste water contains high amounts of faecal matter, so it takes a rigorous and fool proof method to eradicate all disease-causing pathogens in recycled waste water.

Ashbolt (2004) explains that ingestion of unsafe drinking water transmits waterborne diseases. Usually, the water supply system of predisposed communities is susceptible to faecal contamination; over 1415 species of pathogens can be found in untreated waste water. Urine and faeces transmit these illnesses and may lead to severe complications or death. Typical examples include cholera, typhoid, gastroenteritis, infectious hepatitis, bacillary dysentery and amoeba, rotavirus, Escherichia Coli and Guardia Lamblia.

Treatment of waste water may minimise certain pathogens, but in highly infected water, it is difficult to eliminate all of them. Furthermore, recycling methods need to correspond to the development of new water-borne diseases. Scientists must also be aware of the genetic evolution of pathogens, which may make conventional treatment methods inadequate. Chemicals may also threaten public health if present in recycled water.

Conventional treatment may eliminate some chemicals, but could leave trace elements. Esposito et. al. (2005) affirm that the health effects of trace contaminants are still unclear at this point. Some organic compounds can disrupt hormonal systems even under extremely low concentrations. The international public health community is yet to create standards that would regulate treatment of waste water.

Therefore, parties must use a multi-thronged approach which would require elimination of all the threats at different levels (Steyn et. al. 2004). This is not just painstaking; it may cause excessive use of municipal and government resources. Toze (2006) explains that membrane filtration is one of the few effective routes of treating wastewater for portable use. However, it is quite expensive and takes a long time to complete. Jimenez and Chavez (2004) underscore the need for rigor in the treatment of wastewater for domestic purposes.

They assert that one must follow the fate of all the pollutants in the effluent in order to ascertain that they are absent. Esposito et. al. (2005) also outline some of the processes that waste water must go through during treatment. Disinfection and filtration systems in combination with secondary water treatment are effective for removing a portion of pathogens. The resulting product would only be sufficient for irrigation or non potable use.

On the other hand, ultrafiltration would minimise the risks associated with suspended particles. Sometimes certain pathogens are resistant to these processes. For instance, if one uses tertiary treatment on recycled water, one is likely to find viruses like cryptosporidium (Toze 2006). Elimination of chemicals is also essential in making recycled water safe for ingestion.

It would include the use of a series of treatments like nano-filtration, advanced oxidation as well as reverse osmosis. Ion exchange, biological degradation and chemical precipitation, are some synonyms of the above processes (Morud 2009). Owing to the complexity and diversity of disease-causing organisms and compounds in raw waste water, it is difficult to assure consumers of complete eradication of these pathogens in drinking water.

A number of advocates claim that recycled water is safe for drinking because water supply for key cities still comes from downstream rivers, which contain sewage effluent. However, using such a justification would be replacing one ill with another. It is one thing for cities to source their water from downstream rivers, with possible sewage contaminants.

On the other hand, when the concerned institution deliberately takes sewage effluent, then this increases the concentration of pathogens (DTI 14). It would increase the health risks of the population substantially when countries replace contaminated river water with sewage effluent.

Toze (2006) states that the concentration of pathogens in raw water supply highly affects the risks associated with treated waste water. If these sources have a high concentration of pathogens, health risks would increase. The author further states that treatment methods in current use leave certain pathogens in waste water. Cities such as New York are already investing so much in the cleanup of their water supply systems or estuaries (Esposito et. al. 2005).

Furthermore, public health officials suggest the placement of barriers as an effective method of protecting the masses form recycled water risks. One way would be preventing direct contact with contaminants. Therefore, it would almost retrogressive to use sewage effluent if it is already perceived as a health problem in many parts of the world.

Evidence from real-life cases is not sufficient to warrant consideration of recycled water for ingestion. Case studies on potable water reuse are few and hard to analyse. For instance, Anderson (2003) cites Orange County, in California, as one example. The county built a water reclamation plant that would treat water to drinking standard.

Not only did it employ a series of aquifers, but it also injected the water under high pressure. After fifteen years of intensive work, the recycled water was still not used for drinking. Po et. al. (2003) also talks about the controversies involved in portable reuse. For instance, Singapore worked on a project known as NEWater. The government wanted the project to curb dependence on other countries for water supply.

The Singaporean government even packaged the commodity in bottles such that the public could drink it conveniently. However, this plan did not work as few were willing to drink it. While the failure of the project failed due to public squeamishness towards the product, it still denied advocates of recycled water for potable use from having a tangible case study that could support their stand. Sometimes politics may come in the way of successful implementation of such projects.

Scientific backing may exist to support the safety of a water reclamation project. However, if lobbyists and other political groups undermine the implementation of the scheme, then one cannot study the immediate and long term effects of ingesting recycled water. As a result, it is not possible to make conclusive statements about the project. Namibia is a recurrent case study in water recycling analyses.

The city has been consuming recycled water from as far back as 1968. However, people rarely use recycled water directly in this country. Residents prefer blending the recycled water with conventional water. Sometimes the blend may be as high as 1:1 or may account for a quarter of the system in use (Anderson 2003). Direct portable reuse is not widespread because it requires transportation of recycled water from treatment plants into people’s homes.

The public and the scientific community are still not certain about the rigors of the treatment process. Therefore, many of them prefer to go for the indirect potable route (Marks et. al. 2006). If the pioneer of recycled water for potable use (Namibia) still cannot place all their confidence in reclaimed water, then one should question the plausibility of using the product for personal and human consumption.

Recycled water is not safe for drinking because of the health risks involved. Conventional treatment methods do not eliminate all microbes or chemical contaminants, and this could be dangerous. Additionally, few case studies exist to analyse the long term effect of 100% use (without blending) of recycled water among the masses.

Therefore, one cannot employ the method without support from conventional treatment systems. Finally, deliberate introduction of wastewater into water supply systems would increase the number of contaminants that require eradication, and this would pose a greater health risk than contaminated downstream water. Unless stakeholders eradicate these bottlenecks, then recycled water should not be treated as safe for drinking.

Anderson, J 2003 ‘The environmental benefits of water recycling and reuse’, Water Science and Technology , vol. 3 no. 4, pp. 1-10.

Ashbolt, N 2004 ‘Microbial contamination of drinking water and disease outcomes in developing regions’, Technology , vol. 198 no. 3, pp. 229-238.

DTI 200 ‘Water recycling and reuse in Singapore and Australia’, DTI Global Watch Mission Report , November, p. 1-79.

Esposito, K, Tsuchihashi, R, Anderson, J & Selstrom, J 2005, ‘The role of water reclamation in water resources management in the 21 st Century’, Water Environment , vol. 101 no. 4, 8621-8635.

Jimenez, B & Chavez, A 2004, ‘Quality assessment of potential use of an aquifer recharged with wastewater’, Water Science Technology , vol. 50 no. 2, pp. 269-76.

Marks, J, Martin, B & Zadoroznyi, M 2006, ‘Acceptance of water recycling in Australia: national baseline data’, Water , March, p. 152-159.

Morud, J 2009, Reclamation and reuse of wastewater , IUP, Iowa.

Po, M, Kaercher, D & Nancarrow, B 2003, ‘Literature review of factors influencing public perceptions of water reuse’, CSIRO Land and Water Technical Report , vol. 54 no. 3, pp. 1-33.

Steyn, M, Jagals, P & Genthe, B 2004, ‘Assessment of microbial infection risks posed by ingestion of water during domestic water use and full contact recreation in a mid southern African region’, Water Science and Technology , vol. 50 no. 1, pp. 301-308.

Toze, S 2006, ‘Water reuse and health risks-real vs. Perceived’, Desalination , vol. 187 no. 8, pp. 41-51.

• Fossil Fuel Bubble Benefits and Environmental Impact
• Water Scarcity and Its Effects on the Environment
• Wastewater Reuse in the United Arab Emirates
• Reclamation of Grey Water & Refinery Oily Wastewater Using Bioprocesses Treatment
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• How Green Technologies Will Change Our Lives
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• Environmental Justice Issues Affecting African Americans: Water Pollution
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

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08-30-2024 IMPACT

This concrete was made from old seashells that trap water and prevent flooding

Researchers have developed a type of concrete that uses discarded shells. It’s now combating floods and food waste in urban gardens and along cycling paths.

[Source Image: RISD Nature Lab/ Sketchfab ]

BY  Grist 7 minute read

This time of year, bushels of rhubarb, potatoes, and lettuce can be harvested in abundance at the People’s Pantry, a community garden that doubles as a fresh food pantry in Blackpool, England. There, residents living in adjacent affordable housing units tend to the fresh crops they grow and then eat. And lining the ground beneath each raised bed of soil is a smooth sheet of concrete, dotted with slivers of ivory shells. 

“They’re not so obvious at first . . . but as you walk on it, the shells become more apparent as you go, and little flecks of white start coming out,” said Helen Jones, operations director at LeftCoast, which runs the local community garden. She’s describing the concrete mix made with crushed seashells that now serves as a sentry against floods for the garden, bolstering the space against stormwater runoff or heavy rains.  

It wasn’t too long ago that frequent water inundation was a mainstay at the People’s Pantry. A regular day of rainfall would turn the garden’s corners into something like a marsh, morphing uneven ground into dangerously slick walkways, and even seeping into the housing the land is wedged in between. 

This led Jones to meet with local officials last April to see how the issue could be remedied. By the year’s close, the garden’s visitors were looking on in bemusement as a team of scientists at the University of Central Lancashire installed a promising solution: A permeable concrete mix made with cement, aggregate—materials like gravel and rock that are part of typical concrete mixes—and discarded shellfish waste collected from nearby fish processors. 

The material is the brainchild of Karl Williams, who directs the Centre for Waste Management at the University of Central Lancashire. His focus on turning items people traditionally perceive to be waste into useful resources is what led him to begin experimenting with using fishing industry shells otherwise tossed into landfills to improve the built environment.

“We’re trying to minimize the carbon footprint of using waste materials, and we’re looking for local solutions,” Williams said. 

When crushed, scallop and whelk shells produce an ideal shape that enhances the porosity of pervious concrete, a highly permeable form of concrete, which allows for incoming water to drain right through the layer, instead of amassing on the surface like it would with traditional materials. In coastal, urban environments like Blackpool, where flooding is happening more frequently because of climate change , and an abundance of hard surfaces and a lack of natural greenery means there is a lot more runoff than can currently be absorbed, the shell concrete acts like a sponge, holding onto the water for a period of time before releasing it into the surrounding ground—not unlike a sustainable urban drainage system. 

For Williams, the appeal of using discarded seashells to accomplish this flood mitigation is that it also tackles the climate impacts of both food waste and traditional construction. The construction and use of our built environment accounts for more than one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions —the cement industry alone accounts for about 8% of the planet’s carbon emissions—while food waste is responsible for at least another 8% . The climate toll of both industries is what gave Williams the idea to develop the pervious concrete made from locally sourced shells, as part of a European Union-funded multinational research project .

“There’s quite a lot of work around in the construction sector looking at how you can use alternative materials,” said Williams, noting that the construction and food industries happen to be two sectors where “they don’t really talk to each other.” He describes the shell concrete, which he started developing in 2018, as “a conduit for both industries to actually think about the waste that they produce, the products they produce, and how they can work together.”  

Fishmongers typically remove the shells from coastal shellfish catches before they sell them to retailers, producers, or directly to consumers. Incorporating them into the concrete material saves them from being simply tossed into landfills, Williams noted. There’s a cost-saving incentive for the fishmongers, too: Currently in the United Kingdom, a shellfish processor looking to dispose of waste shells in landfill must pay almost 100 pounds per metric ton , so Williams says commercial operations have an incentive to avoid contributing to waste and instead give away their garbage to be repurposed. 

Meanwhile, the more recycled material that you can put into a building material like cement, the lower the carbon footprint of the production process. Replacing the aggregate with alternative materials can shrink the emissions typically generated from quarrying, processing and transportation. 

So far, although the shells added to the concrete mix allow for improved porosity and compressive strength, and decrease the amount of aggregate used by 20% by weight, Williams and his team haven’t quite figured out how to make the overall material carbon-neutral. (Williams says that reducing the emissions footprint of the mixture by investigating lower carbon cements and shell waste processing is the next phase of the project.) 

In the research realm, the idea to deploy crushed shells in aggregate solutions to mitigate flood risk is nothing new, and neither is the use of ingredients otherwise destined for landfills in permeable concrete. A 2017 study tested the durability of pervious concrete using crushed seashells, while a 2020 conference paper experimented with crushed coconut shells in building materials, and a 2021 analysis examined oyster shell aggregate for urban greening applications. 

But this is one of the first to be used successfully outside of a lab. In addition to the Blackpool community garden, the shell concrete has been laid in a historically flood-prone cycling route in northern France, which Williams’s team worked with multiple organizations to implement in 2022 . They are currently in talks to roll this out next at a third test site—a U.K. car park.

“I would not claim this is the very first, or highly innovative, but it’s intriguing, right?” said Xianming Shi, a professor at the University of Miami who studies sustainable construction materials. Shi isn’t convinced that the crushed shell concrete is a large-scale answer to either food waste or emissions associated with concrete. He pointed out that while decomposition of food waste in landfills is a troubling source of emissions, shells don’t contain as much organic waste as other food products, such as fish or vegetables. 

He also argued that this material is unlikely to be a primary driver in reducing the emissions of the cement industry, because the use of a recycled material to partially replace aggregate in concrete would not greatly reduce the life-cycle footprint of the concrete, unless this recycled material is carbon negative . 

Rather, Shi sees it as an avenue to public engagement with this and other emerging techniques that could eventually make more of a difference. “This type of project, maybe it leads to further interest in unconventional concrete,” he said. Other examples include a living microalgae used to produce bio-cement , developed by researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder, or the work of National Renewable Energy Laboratory scientists to create a lignin-based resin that replaces the cement in concrete. 

Some of these may have wider applications than shell-based concrete, which, like other forms of concrete used to absorb flood risk across the world, is riddled with limitations. For one, concrete with high porosity also tends to have lower compressive strength than traditional pavements, meaning it usually isn’t strong enough to act as structural concrete for foundations, nor is it commonly used in high-traffic areas. Many permeable concrete mixtures additionally require regular, specialized maintenance to prevent issues. But while the shell concrete may not function as a large-scale solution, Williams is looking at its use in low-load-bearing sites, such as gardens, parking lots, and sidewalks, where nearby sources of shell waste mean it may be a better answer to flooding woes than other forms of porous concrete.

In a warming world, a seashell concrete may just end up emerging as one among many quick-hit localized solutions in the building and construction industry’s adaptation toolkit. 

Williams’s team is now mapping where outside of the U.K. the types of shellfish needed for their concrete can be found to better understand where else this could be tested. Each location poses its own engineering challenges, as different types of shells fracture differently, which matters for the porosity of their product. So what works for an urban garden in Blackpool, England, a seaside town not far from a copious number of cockles and whelks, or a cycling route near French waters where scallops are in no short supply, may not work elsewhere.

More than eight months have passed since the People’s Pantry installed the shell concrete, and Jones says this is their first growing season in years where they haven’t once faced off with a flood. “There’s been no surface water at all,” Jones said. “I mean, we’ve had some quite torrential showers, but you can walk out straight away and there’s nothing being retained.” 

And while Jones is enthralled with its multifunctional purpose in reducing the need for concrete aggregate as well as providing a use for food waste (she considers it “brilliant”), visitors to the community garden are often captivated by a much simpler concept: “The residents have a whale of a time just pouring water into it.”

— By  Ayurella Horn-Muller , Grist

This article originally appeared in Grist , a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Sign up for its newsletter here .

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Gina Young Wants To ‘Fix The System’ If Confirmed As East Maui Water Board Director

The former county planner has the votes she needs but is facing ethics questions from three council members.

Gina Young has a few more hurdles to clear but is on track to become the East Maui Water Authority’s first executive director, charged with negotiating the public acquisition of long-term water leases that have been privately held since the plantation era.

She received unanimous support by the board that governs the water authority, and appears to have the support she needs for confirmation by the Maui County Council based on its 6-3 vote earlier this month in committee.

But Maui County Council Chair Alice Lee and the two other members of the Government Relations, Ethics and Transparency Committee who voted against her — Yuki Lei Sugimura, who represents Upcountry, and Tasha Kama, whose district covers Central Maui — brought concerns over a potential conflict of interest and the need for a broader feasibility study before hiring the director.

Young is seeking an opinion from the county ethics board on whether her position as executive assistant to Maui County Council member Shane Sinenci, whose district covers East Maui, gave her an unfair advantage over other candidates as the council members alleged.

The ethics board plans to take it up Sept. 11 and issue an advisory opinion. Lee said she’ll vote to confirm Young when the full council takes up the appointment if the board declares her free of any conflicts of interest. Sugimura and Kama did not respond to requests for comment.

Meanwhile, Young said she is eager to lead the fledgling water authority, which voters created by charter amendment in 2022.

It’s an important position for the county since the newly created authority is charged with acquiring long-term water leases and the water collection and delivery system in East Maui.

Young said Thursday that she’s seeking the high-profile role because she wants the public, not private interests, to control Maui’s water resources. Too often, government is reactive rather than proactive, she said, and with climate change making drought more common, the time is now to ensure Maui has enough water for its present and future needs.

“If we fix the system, there will be more water for everyone,” Young said.

Before joining Sinenci’s office in 2019, Young spent eight years as a senior planner in the county planning department and has served twice as president of the Kula Community Association , among other boards.

At the Aug. 8 meeting, Young said she has no financial conflicts that would bar her from the position. She plans to step down as Sinenci’s executive assistant on Oct. 1 before taking on the new job with the water authority.

Lee, Kama and Sugimura suggested that because Young works for Sinenci, who crafted and introduced the charter amendment leading to the water authority’s creation, she might have inside information that would give her an unfair advantage over other job candidates.

Young denied that, saying all the information about the job and the interview questions were publicly available and that executive assistants don’t have access to confidential material.

“We take the Sunshine Law very seriously,” she said, noting that the interview questions, the job description and other information about the director’s role were publicly available online.

Jonathan Scheuer, who chairs the water authority, said the hiring process was unusually transparent.

A temporary interaction group led by Vice Chair Kyle Nakanelua drafted questions for the interview process and to screen the initial list of candidates.

The TIG’s recommendations were discussed at one meeting and adopted at the next during open session, Scheuer said.

That allowed any of the candidates to know exactly what questions would be asked of them.  

“Anybody who was going to be applying could have watched our video and said, ‘Huh, these are the questions I’m going to be asked in the interview and I should be prepared to answer.’ I don’t know how you get more transparent than that,” Scheuer said.

The candidate interviews were broadcast live during a June 24 meeting of the East Maui Water Authority, also known by its Hawaiian name, Aha Wai o Maui Hakina.

The authority launched after 64% of voters — some 34,000 people — in the 2022 election passed a charter amendment . The goal was to gain more public control over water coming from East Maui watersheds via a nearly 140-year-old ditch system running more than 70 miles. Consisting of ditches, tunnels, inverted siphons and flumes, the system routes water to domestic users in Upcountry and Nahiku, as well as ranchers, farmers and others.

The privately built irrigation system is owned and operated by East Maui Irrigation Co., which is 50% owned by Alexander & Baldwin and 50% by Mahi Pono.

A&B is a real estate firm that formerly ran plantations on Maui. Mahi Pono is an agricultural company partly owned by a Canadian pension fund. It owns 41,000 acres in Central Maui that it purchased from A&B, according to its website.

Under a year-to-year revokable permit, EMI is allowed to access water collected in its system and divert it to Central Maui. It sells water to the county at the inexpensive rate of 6 cents per 1,000 gallons.

One of Lee’s concerns is if the East Maui Water Authority takes over the aging system, will the county end up paying more for the water and be stuck with an expensive and leaky system that needs major repair.

“Is it going to cost us more and where is that money going to be coming from?” she said.

Young said the cost of water is going to rise no matter what happens. It’s better for the county to control the water, a public trust resource, rather than having it in the hands of private ownership, in her view.

Mark Vaught, director of water resources for Mahi Pono, said his company doesn’t have an opinion one way or the other about Young. As far as the water authority and its mission, Vaught said it’s also agnostic. It emerged from a charter amendment so it’s a reflection of public sentiment.

“It’s just carrying forth what the people wanted,” Vaught said Thursday.

The diversion of water from East Maui has long been a bone of contention for Native Hawaiian kalo farmers, cultural practitioners and conservationists who argue that it’s dried up streams, wasted water and hurt native plants and animals. Seemingly endless court battles have been waged over allocation of water from East Maui.

Once the water authority has a director and is fully up and running, Young hopes to usher in a new era that might quell some of the longstanding animosity and legal disputes.

“The best solution is collaborative. If we all work together, it benefits everybody,” she said.

The water authority is eligible for federal and private sources of grant money that can be used for watershed restoration and upgrades to the irrigation system, funding that Young said she’s eager to pursue. She also wants to bring the Maui County Council into the picture.

The council has not traditionally been consulted on East Maui water issues, according to Young, and that’s something she would like to change.

“We have a new opportunity to bring your budget expertise, community voices through area Council members, and general government financial oversight to the process,” Young said in her opening statement to the GREAT Committee.

Scheuer said Young is the best person for the job now, but it’s possible the first director will lay the groundwork for the water authority and then be replaced by someone with a technical background, perhaps a civil engineer with experience running a water utility.

Lee said she wants to see a feasibility study sooner rather than later.

The council chair requested it a year ago but a private vendor that the Department of Water Supply wanted to hire to conduct the work didn’t meet the June 30 deadline to sign a contract. The funding that was allocated in last year’s budget is still available.

DWS Director John Stufflebean said Thursday that the department agreed to add $250,000 to the fiscal year 2024 budget for due diligence on acquiring the EMI system.

“Unfortunately, the consultant brought up several minor legal issues with the contract and these were not able to be resolved until the first week in July,” he said.

The delay means the council must reappropriate the money since the new fiscal year began July 1. The council is expected to take up the matter soon and approve the funding. Once that happens, DWS will execute the contract with the consultant, Huayra, said Stufflebean.

The work is expected to take six to eight months. The contractor will evaluate the legal and business aspects of acquiring the irrigation system and its overall physical condition.

Civil Beat’s coverage of Maui County is supported in part by a grant from the Nuestro Futuro Foundation.

Civil Beat’s coverage of environmental issues on Maui is supported by grants from the Center for Disaster Philanthropy and the Hawaii Wildfires Recovery Fund, the Knight Foundation and the Doris Duke Foundation.  

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