Houston Universities Fight Drought with Reclaimed Water

摘要

Rice University and the University of Houston are tapping into graywater reclamation to save millions of gallons of water during a historic drought. By harvesting 12 million gallons of condensate water from air conditioning units across campus, Rice plans to save $80,000 to $100,000 per year. The recycled water represents 5-6% of the university's annual water consumption. The initiative kicked off in 2008 at the school's Bioscience Research Collaborative building, a 10-story structure that requires a large amount of cooling and produces considerable condensate. The recycled water helps replace water lost to evaporation without depending entirely on the city to provide it.