Using water wisely: New, affordable, and essential water conservation practices for facility and home hemodialysis

Abstract

Despite a global focus on resource conservation, most hemodialysis (HD) services still wastefully or ignorantly discard reverse osmosis (R/O) "reject water" (RW) to the sewer. However, an R/O system is producing the highly purified water necessary for dialysis, it rejects any remaining dissolved salts from water already prefiltered through charcoal and sand filters in a high-volume effluent known as RW. Although the RW generated by most R/O systems lies well within globally accepted potable water criteria, it is legally "unacceptable" for drinking. Consequently, despite being extremely high-grade gray water, under current dialysis practices, it is thoughtlessly "lost-to-drain." Most current HD service designs neither specify nor routinely include RW-saving methodology, despite its simplicity and affordability. Since 2006, we have operated several locally designed, simple, cheap, and effective RW collection and distribution systems in our in-center, satellite, and home HD services. All our RW water is now recycled for gray-water use in our hospital, in the community, and at home, a practice that is widely appreciated by our local health service and our community and is an acknowledged lead example of scarce resource conservation. Reject water has sustained local sporting facilities and gardens previously threatened by indefinite closure under our regional endemic local drought conditions. As global water resources come under increasing pressure, we believe that a far more responsible attitude to RW recycling and conservation should be mandated for all new and existing HD services, regardless of country or region.