Is A No Salt Water Softener An Eco-Friendly Alternative?

There are a few no salt water softener options available to people who are concerned about the amount of sodium that their water softening units might be putting back into the environment.

To condition household water with no salt, water softener crystals made from potassium chloride present one viable alternative. Potassium chloride is an odor-free metal halide salt which is made from a combination of potassium and chlorine.

Potassium chloride can be used in place of salt in most standard water softening units, since it works by way of the same basic principle as sodium. It replaces calcium ions with potassium ions, while salt replaces the calcium ions with ones of sodium. The difference between using salt as a water softener as opposed to potassium chloride is the contents of the waste water from the brine tank.

As you might expect, a salt-based system has salty brine in the tank, and the waste water that is drained into the septic system has high sodium content. As most of us now know, substances that are drained into septic systems can find their way into the water table and cause harm to the environment.

Excess sodium is harmful to plant life and can impair the growth of valuable agricultural crops. It can also damage the delicate ecosystems of waterways that are home to fish and many other forms of life.

Replacing the salt in your water softener with potassium chloride means that you will be introducing potassium to the environment in the waste water instead of sodium. Potassium is a component of fertilizer and is used as food by plants, so it can actually help lawns, gardens and larger crops. It is a nutrient that is beneficial to other life forms as well, including the members of your household.

Having trace amounts of potassium in your drinking water is a healthy bonus that you will enjoy by switching to a no salt water softener.

There is another type of no salt water softener available that works in an entirely different way than the units that use salt or potassium chloride. Disadvantages of installing a large household water softening unit include the purchase and installation costs, the space requirements and the ongoing cost of supplying the unit with your chosen water softening product. The alternative is an electronic or magnetic water conditioner.

An electronic water treatment system is a simple little device that attaches to the outside of the water pipe near the source of the water supply. All it does is generate an electromagnetic field inside the pipe. When the water moves through the field, the calcium ions are altered so that they remain in liquid form instead of hardening into scale.

These devices are known as water conditioners rather than water softeners because they don’t actually remove the calcium from the water; they simply treat it so that it can’t cause any problems. Leaving the calcium in your drinking water isn’t actually a bad thing, since calcium is an essential part of the diet and many people are deficient in it.