Lucy Nicholson/Reuters
- A brewery in California is using recycled wastewater to make beer, the New York Times reports.
- The company is using technology designed by NASA for astronauts to recycle water in space.
- Breweries across the western US are making similar moves in an effort to combat drought.
Breweries across the western United States are switching from tap water to recycled wastewater in an effort to combat drought — and one company in California is even using the same technology that astronauts rely on.
The Half Moon Bay Brewing Company in Half Moon Bay, California told the New York Times they worked with NASA to harness the same technology astronauts rely on to recycle their wastewater in space.
Recycled wastewater tends to actually be cleaner than the water breweries can get on-site, multiple brewery owners told the Times. And their claim is backed up by environmental engineers. Last year, Stanford professor William Mitch published a study showing that wastewater recycled using reverse osmosis resulted in a product as clean as groundwater, sometimes even more so.
There is, of course, still a level of squeamishness among customers — though it helps that the taste of the recycled wastewater is no different than tap water, brewer Chris Garrett told the Times.
Researchers are actively working to further refine the efficiency of water recycling technology. Just last month, NASA reported that scientists on the International Space Station had successfully recycled 98% of their wastewater for the first time.