R.O. discharge water

[cephalotus]

I hooked up my ro unit today ,and was amazed at how much waste water it used just to make ten gallons. So I was wondering what everyone does with their ro discharge water? I plan on collecting and using it on my garden and maybe some of my not so picky house plants.

[streetrodder007]

Down the drain .

[henry hill]

Alot of people put the waste line into the washing machine, but be careful not to forget about it and cause a flood!

[tankdude]

I already answered this on MR, so here I go again lol. I let mine go down the drain, never really thought about reusing it.

[ROGERWILCO357]

what is in the waste water? ever test it?

[Sir Patrick]

The waste water is cleaner than your tap water- it has been through all the chambers besides the membrane.

I use the waste water for water changes on my pond- or for water changes on my goldfish tank, depending on if they are inside or out.

[nate_newton]

Could I use the waste water for my red ear slider turtle?

[Sir Patrick]

^ Yup- the water will be cleaner than your tap water. Wont be extreamly clean, but cleaner than the source water fpr sure.

[nate_newton]

So at this point the chlorine is gone?

[AZDesertRat]

The waste is not cleaner than your tap water. Yes it has been through a sediment filter and carbon but it also contains the concentrated TDS removed from the treated water so is 20 to 25% higher in TDS than the tap was to begin with.
Carbon only removes organics like chlorine, pesticides and herbicides and the prefilter only removes large particles so little actual treatment has been done at this point, its the membarne that does 90-98% of the work.

I send mine down the drain since the local WWTP recycles it anyway. I did do my part by going with a Spectrapure MaxCap UHE 1:1 system though so only waste a little less than 1 gallon of water for every good gallon treated unlike the normal 4:1.