In just 25 years, one of the driest regions in Europe went from throwing its water away to reusing 98% of it.
It started with 5 euros a month.
Murcia is one of the driest places in Europe.
1.6 million people live there, and almost no rain falls.
In the year 2000 they passed a law that changed everything.
It added a small charge to every water bill.
For a family – about five euros a month.
And the law said that money can only ever be spent on one thing.
Cleaning the waste water and using it again.
Not roads. Not offices. Nothing else.
Then they did something most places never do.
They gave the clean water to farmers for free.
Today that water is 15% of everything the region’s farms use.
And those farms export 3.8 billion euros of fruit and vegetables a year.
25 years later:
– 100 treatment plants
– 121 million cubic metres cleaned every year
– 98% of it used again
All of this came from one simple decision.
Stop throwing the water away.
In the rest of Europe, only 2 to 3% of treated waste water gets used again.
We clean it once, send it to the sea, and then ask people to shower faster when the reservoirs drop.
For the past 15 years we have helped people, companies and cities catch, clean and reuse their own water.
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