Brain eating critters only exist in tap water from Flint Michigan.

But seriously if this were true just think what this water would do if you drank it.If you ever wake up with amoebic dysentery believe me you'll remember exactly where you got it.

hmmmmmm...explains some things...

Fatal Balamuthia mandrillaris brain infection associated with

improper nasal lavage

rare but you don't want any of it. Near 100% fatality

I just use distilled and my navage and if it eats my brain its my time LOL

I think you're confusing "purified water" with distilled water. Distillation is a process. I would not call distilled water sterile though regardless.

Walmart and most drug stores also sell sterilized water, which is in fact sterile.

Ion exchange is much different than RO and should not be lumped in together. Perhaps you are confusing purified water with deionized water? DI water is different than purified and you generally use DI water for chemical experiments. DI water is achieved after passing water across ion exchange resins and does not actually say anything about the purification.

Bottom line - RO is generally considered more sterile than heat distilled. DI is not RO, but water can be both purified and then deionized if necessary.

RO's are much more efficient and don't break down as much.

Rereading the clinical literature they don't seam to use the word distilled (RO or heat) but they do use the word sterile. No you got me thinking.....

great just great my hypochondria now has me with the brain bug

I was looking at getting an RO system and if you ever look at the requirements you draw the same conclusion. There are ways to capture it for other use though (I think)

They're turning seawater into safe drinking water.

That's probably a much better application, as any waste water from the process is just flushed back into the ocean where it started.

I wasn't talking home-use. I worked with a couple water purification systems for pharma companies... those are using already "clean" drinking water and purifying them further down to sterile. That's a huge waste, as the waste water is actually clean drinking water, that's just being flushed down into the drain.

I was talking about RO, not desalinization. You are correct, they can not possibly be the same. Is it practical to make them larger scale for use in places like cali? I know it happens on some scale but think it may be on a very small scale?

I'm surprised they do not repurpose it.

It's a pharma company. Technically the water is "waste"... there's no way it could be used in any manufacturing since there's no certification on the composition... it would have to be put in some sort of holding vat if it were to be used for employee drinking water or flushing, and that would require all sorts of work to prove you're keeping that clean.

So they just flush it.

FYI, RO can be used for purifying tap water, or for desalinating salt water. I believe it is the same principle, and likely almost identical equipment. There may be small differences I'm not aware of, but probably only for efficiency and because of the low cost (free) of supply water for desalinization.

You would think they could have used it for fire suppression or something similar..... but I get the certification obstetrical.

hehehe....

They prob could have it feed the fire suppression, but I bet that water barely ever moves. Usage there would be just a fraction of the waste water and they would need to set a valve to make sure it's "off" when the system is full.... and the waste water doesn't come out at a strong flow 100% of the time, so they would likely have to have it default to city mains for emergencies....

I get why they don't bother. But I was pretty amazed at the waste.