Reverse Osmosis for my truck hauled water in old cistern?

Yeah, you'll want to reclaim that for plants.

 

does it say how much water is wasted? if its a very small amount it may not be worth the effort

 

wow...yes , that is worth reclaiming for the garden!!!
I never would have guessed it "wasted" that much. Could you dump that back into the cistern to be reclaimed for wash water?

 

Do you have a well?
Can you catch rain water in the cistern?

 

1" of rain on a 1000 square foot roof could give you 600 gallons of water
http://www.rainbarrelguide.com/how-much-water-can-you-collect-in-rain-barrels-during-a-rainfall/
thats 400 flushes. lol

or 15 long (hot) showers...
(I know that got your attention)

 

It's a lot of water that gets rejected from the ro membrane. It's at least 2-1 waste to ro water.

 

You could. It's just going to have a lot more total dissolved solids in it. Is the cistern just used for showers toilets and tap water?

 

not sure how much water you use from the RO, but if the waste was reclaimed back to the cistern it would only add 2-3% of dissolved solids (DS) back per week. (depending on total water usage)
If the water going into the RO is potable then the waste is probably still potable, with just a higher % of DS.
If you are using the RO to make the water potable, the waste is probably not worth reclaiming, unless its just for watering trees and the garden.
I guess in the end it would be ok to reclaim if there was a serious shortage. But then the cost of repiping to the cistern may be the determining factor

 

Ro's are definitely well worth the cost . I've used one for drinking water for the house since the mid 90's and also use one for my maple syrup business. We have a very high tds ( total dissolved solids) from the well. Lots of salt !
How much " waste " you get all depends on the quality of water feeding the ro. How fast you make ro water is all about pressure. I use a small booster pump on my house ro to boost pressure to 80 psi. Wildwest, If your finding that you run out of ro water occasionally adding a simple booster pump will help alot.

The maple sap ro is a whole different can of worms. What I do is take maple sap which is on average 2-3% sugar and run it thru a 40" ro membrane at 180-250 psi . This will increase my sugar to 4-6% and at the same time remove 1/2 of the water. So say I collect 600 gallons of sap in the morning , first thing I do is run it thru the ro and I will only have 300 gallons of sap left but at a much higher sugar content.
What I'm doing is saving the " waste " to boil but I also save the "permeate " which has zero sugar and is the best tasting water you have ever had. I also use this permeate for general cleaning in the sugarhouse. Sorry to run off topic a bit but thought some of you might find this interesting.

 

not just interesting. brilliant!
I think my wife would love this maple water as a drink. she doesn't drink 'Plain' water. usually flavored bottled water or puts a splenda in it

 

sounds like you need spouting and a system to fill the cistern. then sanitize the cistern.
free/soft water when it rains.

 

are you hauling city water in? if not, you should probably sanitize the tanks occasionally