The waste product from desalination is growing too large to ignore, argues a paper from a United Nations think tank that provides the first estimate of global brine production from desalination.

Producing fresh water in the driest parts of the world by removing the salt from sea water is resulting in a deluge of brine, especially in the Middle East and North Africa.

The amount of brine generated by the world’s nearly 16,000 desalination plants is 50 percent larger than earlier assumptions, according to researchers at the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment, and Health.

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