Mother Nature has the ultimate water filtration system. Called the hydrologic cycle, it’s powered by the sun and circulates water from the Earth’s surface to the atmosphere (evaporation), where it’s converted back into liquid via clouds (condensation), and is returned to the Earth as rain, snow, and hail (precipitation), all filtered by the sun’s UV rays.
Unless you’re catching it in a rain bucket, it’s usually filtered further as it passes through soil, sand, minerals, and natural charcoal and carbon filters, or even oysters, which can each filter up to 50 gallons of water a day, and have been used to clean up the water in New York Harbor, courtesy of the Billion Oyster Project.
