Prineville, Ore. – Technology giant Apple has announced plans to use recycled wastewater to cool its Prineville data centers.
The Oregonian reports that Apple confirmed last week that it has agreed to pay for a treatment facility to re-use water for evaporative cooling.
Apple says its new facility will save nearly 5 million gallons of water a year by not taking that water from the tap.
The water will come from Prineville’s regular sewage treatment system and would otherwise have been less rigorously treated and then used at the municipal golf course or flow into pasturelands or the Crooked River.
Apple already uses the city’s water, ranking among the top users with 27 million gallons going to the company’s facilities last year.