In the book Water Our Precious Resource by Roy A. Gallent  97% of the Earth,s water is salty? That leaves less than 3% of freshwater for people.  We need a way to purify that water to get freshwater. A couple ways are purifying wastewater are using water stills and removing salt from ocean water (55).  Freshwater is very important and I hope I can teach you the long process we go through to get it.
     According the the  article "The Clean Water Challenge" one way to purify water is to remove the contaminants from the water. This is the process people go through.  First the water goes through settling and skimming. The lighter pollutants settle on top and are skimmed off. Then, the oxygen that is provided when aeration helps grow bacteria that eat waste material. The third step is to disinfect the water. Chlorine is added to the water in order to kill harmful organisms. Then, the water goes through filtering and distilling where the carbon-based pollutants are removed, distilling takes out the salt. After this the water goes through  coagulation which is when you add chemicals to the water  to remove other harmful chemicals. Lastly, removing or reusing sludge is the process of using the nutrient-rich sludge to fertilize soil (12 and 13). This is only one of many ways to purify water.
    According to the website Solar Water Distillation a second way to purify water is by   using water stills. First  the wastewater that could have been contaminated by run off fertilizers, septic  systems, and industrial pollution is heated by solar energy. The water then evaporates and condenses on the glass. Only the water vapor rises leaving the contaminants behind. The slope of the glass directs the condensate to a collection bucket, then the water goes to a collection bottle and we have freshwater (1-5). This water purification process is used for settlements lacking a safe water supply.
     According to Roy A. Gallent, author of Water Our Precious Resource  another way to purify water is to remove the salt from ocean water. First, water is placed into pipes that are heated with steam at 195 degrees Farenheit. Then the heated water is placed in the first pipe where the air pressure is lowered. Lastly, when the water vapor that was released meets with the cold water bringing in seawater, it then condenses into freshwater and the water instantly boils at 153 degrees Fahrenheit (55-56). I think this is the best way to purify water because most of the world's water is salt water.
    As you can see there are many ways to get the freshwater we need and people are working very hard to get it. As a review, the first way is to purify contaminated water, the second each to use water stills, and the third is to purify ocean water by removing the salt (n. pag). Next time you open a water bottle, think of the many ways it got there.
 WATER PURIFICATION!

By:Taylor

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