As public drinking water quality has come under more scrutiny in recent years, reverse osmosis (R.O.) systems have become increasingly popular in homes and businesses as alternatives to costly bottled water and water delivery services. R.O. systems remove unwanted contaminants, bad tastes and odors from drinking water by forcing municipal or well water through a semipermeable membrane.
While the benefits of R.O.s are generally well-known, one of the lesser known facts is the amount of water that is rejected through the reverse osmosis process. Some traditional R.O. systems reject anywhere from three gallons of water to more than 12 gallons of water for every gallon of purified water they produce.