Open your refrigerator and tell me what you see. You probably have some soda, maybe some juice, and you likely have other staples such as butter, eggs, cheese, and other food items. Maybe you have some cold cuts in there along with yesterday’s dinner leftovers. Hopefully, you also have water. This may be bottled or in a water filter that you use to get drinking water from your tap. Either way, you likely have some water that you can reach for if you are thirsty and really need to have that thirst quenched. Unfortunately, that may not always be an option.

Water that is clean enough to drink is becoming a bit of a commodity. In fact, fresh water that we are able to drink makes up only about one percent of all of the water that can be found on earth. While that is still quite a bit of water, it can be rather scary to think that not everyone has access to drinking water like we do. Here in America and other first world countries, we are lucky enough to have the technology to get drinkable water. If you were to walk into almost any chain store that sells food related items, you will likely find a water purifier or filter. You will also find bottles of water that you can purchase that are already filtered. Some even have minerals and nutrients put back into the water after it is distilled. Just imagine what would happen, however, if all that water was used up and not replaced into our environment and atmosphere.

While we can be thankful that the water cycle exists and can be used to remind us that water is scarce when the precipitation part of the cycle has not happened in a while, we can’t leave everything up to nature in that way. This is one of the reasons that Neptune has created a system that uses as little water as possible to get a perfect clean. We also have a way of recycling water so that you get as much use out of it as possible. We need to remember that water is something that is important to all of us and not just for things like work. After all, we cannot survive without something that makes up the majority of our own bodies.