Share & Voice: Why not salt water?

With all this talk about water, was wondering why we can't use salt water for more things. My assumption is that the salt in the water is the problem!!!

Yes and no, salt does a lot of damage to things. We could shower in salt water but we would have to have special shampoo and soaps to get ride of the damage to our skin.

We would have to redesign household devices so that salt doesn't build up as salt does tend to leave deposits of itself everywhere.

We couldn't grow crops with it as the salt in the water stops it being absorbed by plants (mostly) which would kill them.

What will happen to the salt water that goes down the drain?

After treatment, the water is discharged into streams.

The salt would kill off some of the critters living in the stream, many of them at the base of the food chain.

Here is a website that although not necessarily peer reviewed it has some interesting insight on the fact that people are using the process of desalination of seawater to get there drinking water. Here is the link to the article:
Why can't we use a giant magnifying glass to convert salt water to fresh water?

Also if you are ever stuck on an ocean island without fresh water here is a link to make your own drinking water:
How to Turn Salt Water Into Drinking Water

I'm sure someday when thigs get bad enough and the need is great we will find a way to use all that seawater.