{"id":11993,"date":"2023-11-23T01:46:19","date_gmt":"2023-11-23T01:46:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2023\/11\/23\/this-beer-is-made-from-recycled-shower-water\/"},"modified":"2023-11-23T01:46:19","modified_gmt":"2023-11-23T01:46:19","slug":"this-beer-is-made-from-recycled-shower-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2023\/11\/23\/this-beer-is-made-from-recycled-shower-water\/","title":{"rendered":"This beer is made from recycled shower water"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">      You wouldn\u2019t know if you tasted it, but Epic OneWater Brew is a beer with a peculiar ingredient: it\u2019s made with water recycled from the showers, sinks and washing machines of a residential building.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">      The beer is safe to drink, thanks to a series of treatments that include microfiltration and ultraviolet light, and it is meant to bring attention to the issue of water scarcity and reuse.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">      \u201cBuildings globally use 14% of all potable water,\u201d says Aaron Tartakovsky, CEO and co-founder of Epic Cleantec, the San Francisco-based water treatment company that made the beer in collaboration with a local brewery. \u201cAlmost no buildings reuse that water \u2014 that\u2019s what we\u2019re trying to change.\u201d  <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">      The beer is a K\u00f6lsch-style ale \u2014 a crisp, light-bodied drink originating from Germany \u2014 and was made with recycled graywater from Fifteen Fifty, a 40-story luxury apartment building in San Francisco. But it\u2019s not for sale, as regulations prohibit the use of recycled wastewater in commercial beverages. At least for now.  <\/p>\n<h2 class=\"subheader\">    A \u2018solar\u2019 moment<\/h2>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">      Epic Cleantec<em> <\/em>equips buildings with its water recycling system, eliminating the need to discharge wastewater into a sewer to transport it to a remote treatment facility. The system recycles up to 95% of wastewater, according to the company \u2014 either what is known as blackwater, which comes from toilets, or graywater, which comes from sinks, washing machines, bathtubs and showers.<em><\/em>  <\/p>\n<div class=\"gallery-inline gallery--hidden\">\n<div class=\"gallery-inline__main\">\n<div class=\"gallery-inline__container\">\n<div class=\"gallery-inline__slides\">                                                                                                        <\/div>\n<p>        <button class=\"gallery-inline__prev-overlay\"><\/button>        <button class=\"gallery-inline__next-overlay\"><\/button>      <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<h5 class=\"gallery-inline__headline\">How wastewater is getting a new lease of life<\/h5>\n<div class=\"gallery-inline__counter\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"gallery-inline__controls\">        <button class=\"gallery-inline__prev\">          Prev                  <\/button>        <button class=\"gallery-inline__next\">          Next                  <\/button>      <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">      It does so by first using biological treatment to remove organic matter, then microfiltration via membranes just 0.04 microns thick (about 0.05% of the thickness of a human hair), and finally disinfection by ultraviolet light and chlorine, which makes the water safe for reuse in non-potable applications like toilet and urinal flushing, irrigation and laundry. The system<strong> <\/strong>installed in Fifteen Fifty is designed to recycle 7,500 gallons of water per day, or up to 2.75 million gallons per year.<strong><\/strong>  <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">      \u201cWhat we\u2019ve done is just take a lot of existing principles in the wastewater world and design it for single buildings instead,\u201d Tartakovsky said. \u201cWe do for water what solar did for energy, which is moving away from a sole reliance on large, centralized infrastructure.\u201d  <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">      Epic Cleantec says the system has other benefits: recovered heat from the wastewater can be used to pre-heat domestic hot water, cutting heating costs, and the organic matter in the wastewater can be used to produce natural soil products, usable in landscaping, gardens or parks.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">      An installation takes the space of a few parking spots, on average, but it\u2019s expensive \u2014 from a few hundred thousand dollars into the millions, depending on the size of the building. However, Tartakovsky says that it pays for itself in just a few years, by lowering utility bills.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">      In San Francisco, since 2015, all new buildings of more than 100,000 square feet are required to have an on-site water recycling system; out of the few dozen currently installed, Epic Cleantec is responsible for five.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">      \u201cIt\u2019s very common sense. Why are we still using pristine drinking water from our national parks to flush the toilets of our tech employees in downtown San Francisco?\u201d Tartakovsky asks. \u201cScientifically, this water often meets or even exceeds drinking water standards.\u201d  <\/p>\n<h2 class=\"subheader\">    Cutting water usage<\/h2>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">      Epic Cleantec started its beer project in late 2022, for attendees of a conference on sustainable building technologies. \u201cWe ended up producing just over 7,000 cans, not as a commercial product, but as an educational effort,\u201d Tartakovsky says, using 2,000 gallons of recycled water. \u201cIt was meant to tell the water reuse story in a new way. But frankly, we did not anticipate the tremendous response that we saw.\u201d  <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">      While Epic Cleantec\u2019s system isn\u2019t intended to produce water for drinking, regulations currently allow potable reuse of wastewater in many US states, including California and Texas. More states, including Arizona, Colorado, Florida, New Mexico and Washington, are in the process of updating their water reuse regulations.<strong><\/strong>  <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">      \u201cRecycled water is already being used as a source of drinking water in places like Southern California, Singapore and Australia,\u201d says David Sedlak, director of the Berkeley Water Center at the University of California, Berkeley. \u201cAll of those operations rely upon recycling plants that are associated with sewage treatment plants. Building-scale water recycling systems offer an opportunity for cities to reduce their reliance on water from rivers, lakes and reservoirs \u2014 sources that are vulnerable to climate change. It also offers opportunities to save energy and reduce the amount of pollutants that cities release to the environment.\u201d  <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">      Sedlak, who is not involved in Epic Cleantec, says the water recycling system developed by the company has proven its technology to be a viable means of recycling water within buildings. \u201cIt is clean enough to use to produce a tasty beer and it is certainly clean enough to use for toilet flushing and landscape irrigation,\u201d he adds.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">      In 2017, two California-based brewers produced limited-edition beers made from recycled water, to serve at local events. Daniel McCurry, an assistant professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Southern California, tried one. \u201cI drank it with no reservations, but it was brewed with water from a municipal potable reuse project in San Diego,\u201d he says.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">      He explains that municipal systems for potable reuse typically include two more steps than Epic Cleantec\u2019s \u2013 reverse-osmosis and UV\/advanced oxidation processes \u2013 which McCurry says can remove chemical contaminants such as industrial solvents and pharmaceuticals \u201cto a much greater extent than by ultrafiltration, UV, and chlorine alone.\u201d  <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">      Being able to sell beer or other drinks made with such water would require another regulatory step, but it isn\u2019t out of the question, according to Tartakovsky. \u201cWhen I got into the water industry, there was a lot of often-repeated tropes that the general public was just not ready for recycled water,\u201d he says.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">      \u201cIn the industry, we call it the \u2018yuck\u2019 factor. There\u2019s a mental perception that recycled water is not as clean as other sources of water. But what I often remind people of is that all water on this planet is recycled. The water we are drinking today is the same water that was consumed by the dinosaurs millions of years ago.\u201d  <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">      He adds that, despite not being its focus, Epic Cleantec is now having conversations with some of the largest brewers in the world. \u201cWe have a lot of people who are asking for more of it, just because beyond being an interesting environmental story, the beer actually just tastes really good,\u201d he says.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">      \u201cYou\u2019re going to start hearing a lot more about a lot of different industries using recycled water for their products. I think the sky\u2019s the limit for what we can do.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n<div>This post appeared first on cnn.com<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You wouldn\u2019t know if you tasted it, but Epic OneWater Brew is a beer with a peculiar ingredient: it\u2019s made with water recycled from the showers, sinks and washing machines of a residential building. The beer is safe to drink, thanks to a series of treatments that include microfiltration and ultraviolet light, and it is <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":11994,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-11993","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11993\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}