A new process is presented for replacing the typical NaCl-based with a KCl-based solution, for regenerating water-softening ion-exchange resins. The incentive is three-fold: to minimize the release of detrimental brines to the environment, to augment K+ in humans' diet at the expense of harmful Na+ and to improve the worth of the treated water with respect to irrigation and soil properties. Since KCl is 3-5 times more expensive than NaCl, the proposed process targets the recycling of the spent regeneration solution through a sequence of membrane processes (nanofiltration, diananofiltration, reverse osmosis) aimed at separating the divalent cations (hardness species) from K+, followed by concentration of a fraction of the K+ solution using RO to prepare it to serve as the next-cycle regeneration solution. Detailed results of all separation steps (apart from the relatively-simple RO step) are presented, along with a comprehensive cost analysis, that shows that the process becomes cost competitive (vs. the traditional NaCl-based regeneration) after merely five ion exchange/regeneration cycles. The three-step recycling technique resulted in the recovery of 92% of the K+ mass, along with 60% of the fresh water used in the process. After five adsorption/regeneration cycles the ion exchange breakthrough curve showed only slight deterioration due to a low divalent cations concentration that accumulated in the recycled regeneration solution ([Ca2+] + [Mg2+] = 23 meq/L vs similar to 1000 meq/L of K+).