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Originally Posted by onewhippedpuppy
I've also pondered - how do we "waste" water? "Waste" seems to insinuate that the water is no longer water, but that's not really true. If you use water in your home, it is treated and returns to a creek, river, ocean, etc. Still water. If you wash your car or water your lawn, it evaporates as part of the Earth's natural cycle and eventually falls again as rain somewhere else. Still water. The only true "waste" that I could think of involves the use of water in production processes where it changes state, i.e. where it is an ingredient in a chemical reaction that produces a solid product.
In my mind we do a lot of things to move water, which can definitely be harmful on a local and regional scale. But it is still water. Am I wrong here?
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From a practical perspective, I think there is a clear difference between seawater or contaminated water that is not usable for most human purposes, and clean freshwater that is usable. Converting the latter into the former without getting much value out of it is "waste" in a practical sense.
Analogy - if you blow $10K on nothing, the money hasn't changed state, but it has left your pocket and you probably call that "waste".