Why recycled water is the answer to data centers’ sustainability crisis—and why we’re not using it yet
The campaign that got people talking
In a tongue-in-cheek marketing stunt, the beverage brand Liquid Death partnered with NFL legend Jason Kelce to address an uncomfortable truth: AI data centers are drowning in water consumption—literally and figuratively. The commercial’s premise is absurd: Kelce suggests that human urine could solve the environmental crisis by cooling overheating servers, complete with a crowd singing “Let’s pee on computers together to save humanity!”
It’s ridiculous. And yet, buried within the humor lies a grain of actual scientific truth.
The serious problem behind the joke
The viral video masks a pressing environmental concern that’s capturing mainstream attention: AI infrastructure demands staggering quantities of water to prevent server meltdowns. Data centers require constant cooling, and as AI deployment accelerates, so does their thirst for freshwater—resources that communities increasingly can’t spare.
According to Michael Obradovitch, vice president of Data Center Global Accounts at Ecolab, while the Liquid Death commercial is purely satirical, “there is already a fair amount of alternative water sources being used to cool data centers today.” This suggests an emerging but underutilized solution.
The real alternative: Recycled water
As explained here, rather than collecting human waste, the solution is to treat it responsibly. Recycled water—produced by processing wastewater and sewage through advanced treatment facilities—is already being deployed at scale to cool data centers across the country. As Bruno Pigott, executive director of the WateReuse Association and former EPA water administrator, explains: “You wouldn’t just use pee, but you can clean it and make it into useful water, and that’s what we advocate.”
Water treatment plants employ sophisticated technology—membrane bioreactors, reverse osmosis, ultraviolet purification—to transform waste streams into industrial-grade (and sometimes even potable) water. This approach is hardly new; industries have relied on recycled water for decades.
Why infrastructure lags behind demand
Despite proven technology, adoption remains uneven. The bottleneck isn’t scientific—it’s logistical and financial.
Data centers require proximity to robust wastewater treatment facilities large enough to process millions of gallons daily. This works in densely populated areas but fails in rural regions where data centers increasingly locate to find cheaper land and available power. As Dr. Greta Zornes, a water reuse expert at engineering firm CDM Smith, notes: “When data centers go out into rural areas, the wastewater treatment plants just aren’t big enough.”
The statistics from Loudoun County, Virginia—a data center hub with over 250 facilities—starkly illustrate this gap. Despite using 200 million gallons of recycled water daily, this accounts for only 43% of the data center’s water needs in the county. The remaining 260 million gallons come from potable supplies, meaning more than half the region’s data center cooling drains freshwater reserves intended for residents and agriculture.
Building the infrastructure we need
The solution requires substantial investment in water treatment infrastructure—an undertaking that typically falls on municipalities with limited budgets. Forward-thinking tech companies are beginning to step in.
Meta, for instance, committed at least $270 million to wastewater infrastructure projects near its data centers, positioning itself as an “anchor” for community water systems. This model could accelerate broader adoption, as Obradovitch suggests: “There’s a number of cases where data centers have committed funding and capital to municipalities to help address these challenges.”
On the policy front, advocates like Pigott are pushing for legislative support. Proposed legislation would provide a 30% tax credit for industries scaling recycled water infrastructure—a measure that could dramatically accelerate adoption across the sector.
The bigger picture: Public concern and awareness
The Liquid Death campaign’s virality reflects growing public anxiety about data centers’ environmental footprint. Recent polling shows that approximately 70% of Americans oppose data center construction in their communities, while AI products themselves face sustained backlash over environmental and ethical concerns.
This public pressure may actually drive change. As Pigott observes, while crude, the commercial “raises awareness of water, and anything that does that, however crude it may be, could be beneficial. It gives us a chance to educate the public about what we’re doing today.”
The Takeaway
The joke about using human urine to cool servers is absurd, but it unwittingly illuminates a serious challenge: AI’s infrastructure demands are outpacing our ability to meet them sustainably. The technology to use recycled water exists and works. What’s needed now is the will—and investment—to build the systems that make it standard practice rather than the exception.
Until then, data centers will continue consuming freshwater at unsustainable rates, even as a humorous beverage brand reminds us that there might be a better way.