An improved process for the recovery of high-purity ethylene-oxide water feed streams to EO purification and MEG reaction units when both are operating in EO plants that incorporate EO Stripper bypass technology, by installing a second lights stripper to exclusively degasify the diluted EO feed to the MEG reactor, thus permitting the use of additional bypassed (gasified) EO absorbate as the diluent and resulting in a substantial increase in the total amount of EO absorbate that can bypass the EO Stripper.