Cleaning Water in the Environment


Water stands as one of the most important liquids in the world, and life is not possible without this fluid. Such liquid is also necessary for most major human endeavors and businesses, and entire industries are built around collecting, cleaning, and distributing it. An urban center’s water utility will collect dirty liquid from the natural environment and sewage and treat it, and clean water may soon result from clearing out chemical contaminants. Remediation services for this liquid are possible for dirty water, and coal ash can also be cleaned out of such liquid before it is put into commercial utilities for human use. How might these various liquid cleaning and distribution systems work to provide fresh water to all people who need it? There is only so much fresh water to go around, so processing plants are working hard to keep it in good supply and circulation.

Liquids in the Environment

Water (which may often be referred to as “liquid” here) is a major natural resource, and this liquid varies in its nature and where it is found. Unfortunately for human use, the world’s oceans are salty and are hardly usable for humanity, and fresh liquids only make up 3% of the world’s supply or so. Human use of this liquid is greater than ever, so shortages must be prevented by maximizing efficiency where this liquid is concerned. In recent decades, many innovations have been born to allow better filtration, reclamation, and extraction of water for human use. Often, this starts with natural supplies of it.

The bad news is that modern human industry pollutes the natural world, and this includes its liquids as well as the air and soil. Coal mines may put coal ash everywhere, and this makes such liquids far too dirty for human beings to use for anything, especially drinking. In fact, it has been determined that around 70% of modern industrial waste is deposited into bodies of fresh liquids that is part of the usable supply for the world. That’s a lot of pollution, so something has to be done to make these liquids usable for human beings, or the supply would rapidly run out. Groundwater is often affected, and this liquid makes up 95% of all of the United States’ available fresh water supplies. It also allows for nearly half of the nation’s populations to have something clean to drink, so naturally, such supplies should be protected and filtered. Today’s technology makes this possible.

Cleaning Out the Water

Clean drinking water does not come from nowhere. Rather, a series of facilities, chemicals, and hardware is used to make such liquids safe for human consumption, and this is often done on an industrial scale. How might this happen? Sometimes, dewatering sludge and other materials is done to extract usable liquids from inside. No one can drink sludge, but the water inside can be taken out of it when special rollers, filters, and presses are used to separate these materials. During the dewatering process, these filters and rollers will simply squeeze the safe liquids out of such sludge and similar materials, and those liquids may then be claimed and further filtered and distributed elsewhere. Meanwhile, the leftover product of this process is a dry, hard cake that is then discarded.

Meanwhile, sewage and water drawn from natural sources is not yet clean enough to drink or use, so these liquids will go through a number of tanks and filters to get clean enough for use first. Such large jobs are handled with storage tanks and pipes at a processing plant, and chemicals in the water will break down contaminants. Filters will prevent these contaminants from getting further into the system, and organic matter such as harmful bacteria and viruses will be killed with chemicals. Further filters and chemical treatment will kill and remove anything in the water that may make it unsafe for human use, and by the time it reaches public buildings and homes, it is safe for all kinds of use. But sometimes, hard water may present itself; that is, it may have dissolved calcium and magnesium in it. Homeowners may hire plumbers to install filters on the home’s plumbing that will soften that water and increase its quality before use.


Leave a Reply