Oxygen Not Included Polluted Water: How to Recycle Water

Water is one of the essential resources in Oxygen Not Included, however, it is not always easy to find clean water in the game. Oxygen Not Included polluted water is more commonly seen, and it actually can be recycled into clean water and for other uses. This guide offers players a simple solution to build a recycling plumbing system, helps players reduce the reliance on seeking clean water resources, and finds out how to make use of polluted water.

Why Is Water So Important?

Solving the Oxygen Not Included polluted water issue and preserving clean water is quite important after players progress to the mid-game phase. Because after reaching 200 – 300 cycles, the resources that are further away from the base are getting harder and harder to reach. Players are basically exhausting the accessible resources around the base, such as algae, clean water, coal, etc. Therefore, players need to transition the base and rely on a more sustainable recycling model. This relates to electricity, water, or other resources.

Players need water for:

1. generating oxygen using electrolyzers, which also provides hydrogen gas for electricity.
2. Irrigating plants, an important food source.
3. Other crucial facilities, like the oil well, lavatories, showers, metal refinery, etc.

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How to Recycle Oxygen Not Included Polluted Water?

The major steps of recycling polluted water are:

1. Collect the polluted water in one reservoir.
2. Filter clean water using sand and the water sieve.
3. Send the clean water to another dedicated reservoir.

Polluted Water Collection

To collect polluted water, players can build a reservoir using tiles, bottle emptiers, and liquid vents. Polluted water usually comes from duplicants’ urine, vomit, and dirty water from lavatories, showers, and other facilities.

1. Mop the polluted water on the floor. Empty it at the bottle emptiers, and collect it in the polluted water reservoir.
2. Polluted water passed out from facilities can be piped to the polluted water reservoir directly using pipes and vents.

This design in the picture can help players collect all the polluted water to one spot.

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Turn Polluted Water into Clean Water

Firstly, players need to build a water pump at the bottom of the polluted water reservoir to draw the polluted water out for recycling. Players can connect the pump directly to the water sieve.

Players need to research the technique and build the water sieve to turn polluted water into clean water. The water sieve requires only sand and electricity to work. Players can set the priority of the water sieve to 7 – 9, so that the duplicants can always refill the sand in time.

Lastly, build a vent directly above the clean water reservoir to let the clean water out.

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Send Clean Water to Water-Consuming Facilities

The last step is to build the water pump and pipes to connect the clean water reservoir to facilities that need clean water. For example, in the picture below, the clean water is connected to the white arrows of the lavatories and shower rooms.

If there are other types of liquid inside your clean water reservoir, you can also build a liquid filter next to the pump to make sure that only the clean water is drawn out. To make this work, players can connect the yellow arrow of the liquid filter to send out clean water, and connect the green arrow to the polluted water reservoir or other reservoirs reserved for other types of liquid.

Congrats! You’ve successfully built up your water recycling system!

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What if the Reservoirs Run Out of Water?

There are many facilities that can consume a large quantity of water, like the oil well, reed plantation, and metal refinery. However, once players have one water recycling system built up, they can easily draw polluted water from elsewhere and turn it into clean water.

Similarly, players can build pumps in any Oxygen Not Included polluted water resource and use liquid pipes to draw the water to the polluted water reservoir. The recycling system will continuously turn it into a clean water resource.

Moreover, some facilities produce polluted water that players can make use of. Natural gas generators and petroleum generators, for example, produce polluted water that players can use pumps to collect.

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FAQs on Oxygen Not Included Polluted Water

How do I get rid of polluted water with Oxygen Not Included?

If the polluted water is on the floor, players need to mop it and build a bottle emptier. Select polluted water at the bottle emptier so that the duplicants will only empty bottles with polluted water here. Then, players can research and build a water sieve to turn the polluted water into clean water.

What produces polluted water with Oxygen Not Included?

Many facilities let out polluted water in Oxygen Not Included. Natural gas generators, petroleum generators, carbon skimmers, and any facilities that say output polluted water in the descriptions produce polluted water. Duplicants produce polluted water too, when they make a mess or vomit out of stress.

Oxygen Not Included Polluted Water Problem Is Generally Easy to Solve

Players should start building the water recycling system around 150 cycles. The water recycling system requires fewer materials and less complicated designs. It is also crucial for the mid-game base transitions and development. Starting to figure it out early can save players much trouble when they need to focus on electricity and other resources later. The logic is simple: pump the polluted water out, sieve through it, and send it to the clean water reservoir.

And, don’t worry too much about getting the system perfect in one go. The game gives players much leeway to adjust, and duplicants will not die easily from germ infections.🤮