AEDyR offers ten keys about water that should be known from the first levels of education | Environmental News

2024-01-26 09:03:01

Details AEDyR Spain Environmental News January 26, 2024

The Spanish Association of Desalination and Water Reuse (AEDyR) has prepared, on the occasion of World Environmental Education Day, a decaloguewith the keys which considers that they should be taught from the first levels of education to raise awareness in society about importance of rationally using water resources and the different techniques to take advantage of them, such as desalination and the reuse, and thus contribute to the circular economyr.

These are the 10 keys:

• Drinking water, a scarce resource. Only 2.5% of the Earth’s water is fresh. The remaining 97.5% contains a large amount of salts that prevent it from being used directly for human consumption, agriculture, industry or cleaning public spaces.
• Technology. To make better use of this resource, technologies have been developed that allow salts and impurities to be extracted from water so that it can be used for all the uses that humans need.
• Desalination: By eliminating excess salts from seawater in desalination plants, it is transformed into drinking water so that it reaches our taps ready to consume.
• Membrane technique. Salts from sea water are extracted through reverse osmosis membranes. When seawater is passed through these membranes, two streams of water are obtained: one with a low salt content, the permeate, which will give rise to drinking water, and another stream of concentrated seawater, the brine. , which is returned to the sea.
• Purification. Most fresh water, which is what rivers, lakes and aquifers contain, cannot be consumed directly either; it must be treated to eliminate germs or other substances harmful to health. This function is performed by the water treatment plants.
• Purification. Once the water is used and goes out through the drain, it travels to the treatment plants, where the substances it contains that can harm the environment and living beings are eliminated.
• Reuse. In order to be used again, the water that has passed through the treatment plants is subjected to more advanced cleaning processes, after which it can be reused for normal uses. Reuse is the sector’s contribution to the circular economy.
• Uses of reused water. In Spain, legislation does not allow the consumption of reused water, although it is possible in other places in the world such as California or Singapore, for example. But it is allowed to use it for agriculture, gardening, industry or urban cleaning.
• Lack of water. There is an increasing scarcity of water on the planet, due to climate change, which causes higher temperatures and more irregular rainfall, while the population increases. This lack of water and droughts make it necessary to use more desalinated and reused water.

Each and every one of us can contribute our drop of water. Water scarcity is a problem that affects us all and, therefore, it is the responsibility of each person to preserve it, make rational use of it and not waste it.

Press contact: Cristina García Alonso 608 80 64 50