"Your Water Contains More Than H2O"
Filter the Water That You Drink and Wash With
Have you ever noticed the Superior Water
signs in some towns? It makes you think that your tap water is
"superior," right? Well...maybe. But along with hydrogen and oxygen your
"superior water" may also contain:
- chlorine
- lead
- arsenic
- asbestos
- atrazine
- trihalomethanes
- cryptosporidium
- fluoride
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- cyanide
- nitrogen
derivatives
- pesticides
- solvents
- dioxins
- radioactive substances
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Did You Know?
Taking a shower in unfiltered, chlorinated water is
like drinking a half-gallon of chlorinated water? That's how much
your body absorbs in the time it takes to shower. Your children are
absorbing chlorine too...every time you bathe them in chlorinated
water.
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So how can you know what's in
your water?
- Read your water company's Consumer Confidence Report. The EPA
requires water companies to test for 90 contaminants in water as it
leaves municipal treatment plants and list those detected. If you don't
have a copy of your report, call your water company and ask for a free
copy, or look for it at your local library, or at
EPA’s Safe Drinking Water site.
NOTE:
For help reading the report refer to
Safe Drinking Water: What's a Consumer
Confidence Report?
- Test your water. Even if the water coming into your house or
apartment building may be safe, the water flowing out of your taps may
not be. This is because lead can leach from pipes and soldering; vinyl
chloride can leach from PVC; and bacteria can grow in pipes, water
heaters, holding tanks, etc.
NOTE:
CHEC says it is very important for you to test your water if you live in
a high-rise building because flushing may not be as effective due to
central piping. Eeewwww!
A very interesting source of
information, especially if you live in a heavily industrialized area or
near a waste dump, is the Environmental Defense Fund’s website,
Chemical Scorecard,
where you can search by ZIP Code for data on toxic releases from 17,000
sites in all 50 states. This may help you with deciding whether or not
to test your water.
Personally, I decided that I didn't
want to depend on my water company's filtration efforts, because even if
they filter out most of the bad stuff, I don't want to breathe and
absorb chlorine any more than I have to. So we paid $699 for a whole
house water filter (small family), plus $450 to have it installed by a
licensed plumber, for a total of $1149. We have to change filters on it
about once a year for around $100.
Read "What's Wrong With Chlorine?
The great thing about this water filter
system is that all of the water coming into my house goes through
four filters. Most whole house water filters push water through one
filter...even if they have four filters! Those systems divide the water
so that the water goes through only one of the four filters—not all
four.
With the system that we installed, every
drop of water in our home, from every faucet, bath tub, and shower in
the house (as well as from the outside water hose!) is filtered through
four separate filters. And it is so easy to maintain...just replace the
filters once a year.
Since we installed a whole-house water
filter on our new home, our water is virtually chlorine free, and guess
what? I used to get really dry skin and have to put on a lot of lotion
to treat the tiny, red dry skin bumps that would appear on my skin.
Since we installed the water filter, I haven't had one dry skin bump
appear! And I use much less lotion now than I did before.
Can't afford a whole house filter? Here
are some less expensive alternatives. But keep in mind that you have to
change filters on these items every 2-3 months.
*Consumer Reports listed as one of the
best for removing lead and chloroforms.
I estimate that my whole house filter
(small) will pay for itself in 7 years (or less) as compared to buying
either of the other systems listed above. Plus, it decreases the amount
of waste (disposable filters) that my system creates while adding value
to my home. But what is even better...it adds to my peace of mind.
JSMILE But even if you can't afford a whole house filter,
you can still improve the water that your family drinks and bathes in by
using the other methods listed above.
More Safe Water Tips
- Don't use hot tap water for cooking or drinking. Lead
leaches more easily from hot water lines, so do not use hot water
from the tap for cooking, drinking or mixing infant formula. Hot
water heaters often accumulate sediment and contamination. Their
elevated water temperature provides ideal conditions for biological
contaminants to breed. Plus...it uses more energy...so it costs
more!
- Let cold water run for several minutes in the morning before
consuming it. Water that sits in pipes for several hours may
accumulate lead that leaches from pipes and fixtures.
- Buy your own water bottles and fill them with your own,
filtered water. This cuts down on the billions of plastic water
bottles clogging up our landfills, provides better water than the
average bottled water, and saves you money!
Think Bottled Water Is Safer Than Tap?
Since bottled water is regulated by the
FDA instead of the EPA...it can be even more polluted than tap water.
According to government and industry estimates, as much as 40 percent of
bottled water is actually bottled tap water, sometimes with additional
treatment, sometimes not. Even though some bottled water companies use
misleading words like "pure," "pristine," "glacial," "premium,"
"natural," or "healthy"—that doesn't mean that the water is pure.
To find out if your bottled water is from
a tap, check the label and cap. If it says "from a municipal source" or
"from a community water system" anywhere on the bottle, it’s from a tap
and may not have undergone additional purification.
What's more...you should not buy bottled
water with the recycling codes #3 PVC, #6 PS, and #7 Polycarbonate,
which may leak suspected carcinogens and hormone disruptors. Look for
safer plastic bottles, such as #1 PETE, #2 HDPE, #4 LDPE, and #5
PP.
Learn the definitions:
- Spring water comes from one or more underground formations
and must flow naturally to the Earth’s surface. However, the FDA allows
bottlers to call their product "spring water" even though the majority
of it may be brought to the surface using a pumped well. According to
FDA regulations, the source must be stated on the label.
- Purified drinking water has been processed by reverse
osmosis, deionization, distillation, or other procedures to remove
contaminants. The source doesn’t have to be named—and is often tap
water.
- Naturally sparkling water is naturally carbonated water that
often comes from a spring.
- Mineral water must contain at least 250 parts per million of
dissolved solids—usually calcium, magnesium, sodium, potassium, silica,
and bicarbonates. Mineral water is typically spring water.
- Soda water and seltzer are not considered bottled water. The
FDA regulates these as soft drinks, under rules less strict than those
for bottled water. Some may have added sugars or flavors. They’re often
carbonated municipal water, sometimes with extra filtration.
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