Category Archives: Wellness

The Truth About What is in Tap Water

Posted on by Scott
Christy

What is in tap water anyway? The answer will surprise and startle you. The truth is not pretty: everything we ever put on our lawns, washed our cars with, dropped into trash cans and flushed down the toilet is in tap water. And the industrial chemicals, petroleum products and other volatile organic compounds leaking out of rusting tanks all over the world are in there too. In fact, there is no new water. All water is recycled after passing back into our lakes, streams and aquifers. Not what you wanted to hear was it?

As our bodies are mostly made from water and use water in every metabolic process the purity of tap water is a major concern of all intelligent individuals who care for themselves and the health of our planet. Knowing how to deal with the answer to this critical question is also very important. There are various ways of removing many of the toxins. Municipalities do some of the work for us with varying degrees of success.

Synthetic organic chemicals are not removed by municipal water filtration as these systems use mainly sand beds and chlorine. This is essentially bleach and filtering out visible particles. According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, “Drinking water plants are old and out of date, and water supplies are increasingly threatened by and contaminated by chemicals and microorganisms.”  We need to do better; what is in tap water will affect our children’s health too. Small children are especially susceptible to toxins such as heavy metals, pesticides and hormones in drinking water. Their systems are more sensitive and still developing. Small children consume a larger percentage of fluids per body weight and so are getting a bigger dose of these damaging substances every day.

That said, what can we do to ensure the purity of tap water we consume and depend on. The answer is home water filtration. This is the only sure way to control the security of your family’s drinking water. An investment in home water filtration is one of the best investments you will ever make in a healthy longevity. The brain is mostly water and so in the liver. Our livers, the organ that detoxifies our blood from all this garbage in our environment is, after all, almost 96% water. It must be thoroughly hydrated with clean, pure water regularly.

Don’t depend on others to take care of your water supply. Do the job yourself and you will answer the question of “What is in tap water?” with a confident smile. No harmful substances of any kind. Most people just talk about change. You can do something to increase the purity of tap water “in your backyard.” And then invite the neighbors to partake as well.

 

Lorrie

Drugs in Tap Water – Why You Have Reason for Concern

Posted on by Scott
Robert Tell

You may well have drugs in your tap water.

If you drink bottled water, don’t be reassured. Forty percent of bottled water is just bottled tap water — and the rest is largely unregulated for quality.

The evidence that we have prescription drugs in tap water from public water supplies has been around for years, but got a lot of attention just this year when the Associated Press published the results of a five-month investigation.

The AP reported:

– Traces of epilepsy drugs, birth control pills and other hormones, painkillers, psychiatric drugs, asthma drugs, and many others have been found in public water supplies.

– Besides pharmaceuticals in drinking water, many over-the-counter drugs and compounds from shampoos, detergents and deodorants were found in drinking water, too. The substances have been found almost everywhere researchers have looked for them.

The amount of drugs in tap water is almost always very small — but often there are many combinations of drugs in any given water sample.

Danger from drugs in tap water: an unanswered question

There’s no proof that drugs in our tap water are harmful. The problem is, nobody knows. Benjamin H. Grumbles, US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) assistant administrator for water, said, “We recognize it is a growing concern and we’re taking it very seriously.”

There are many sources of pharmaceuticals in drinking water, experts believe. Hospitals, pharmacies, clinics and people like you and I often dispose of drugs that are no longer wanted or needed by flushing them down the sink or toilet. Some 40 percent of the antibiotics manufactured in the US are used as growth stimulants for livestock, and their manure might well be a source of drugs in tap water. Leaking septic tanks are another possible source.

Increasing numbers of communities across the country are setting up ways for consumers to return pharmaceuticals for disposal, often by incineration. It’s still not clear if incineration is better for the environment than the slow seepage from a landfill, cautions the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

But as an imperfect, compromise solution, it’s believed that wrapping up unneeded drugs and placing them in the garbage is much better than flushing them.

So early in 2009, Fish and Wildlife will team with the American Pharmacists Association for a drug disposal campaign. The plan is to advise us all to mix unwanted drugs with used cat litter, then put the mixture in the garbage. That’s to discourage dumpster digging by drug addicts.

What we can do about drugs in tap water

Since nobody knows what the danger is from drugs in tap water, it makes sense to be cautious, but not extreme. The long-known hazards to drinking water — pollution from insecticides and weed killers, lead and PCBs — are at least as important a concern. So here are some practical things you can do:

1. Skip the bottled water. At a cost ranging from just under a dollar (for cheap gallon jugs at the supermarket, guaranteed to be just tap water anyway) up to $10 a gallon, it’s the world’s worst and most expensive answer to drugs in tap water. More than 80 percent of the bottles end up in landfills; chemicals leach from the plastic bottle into the water and may affect our health; and the petroleum used to make bottles in the US would fuel about 100,000 cars each year.

2. Don’t flush unneeded drugs down the toilet. If you can, turn them in to a local collection center to be disposed of, often by incineration. Or dump them into used kitty litter before disposing of it. If you don’t have a cat, just do the best you can by wrapping the drugs and disposing of them with the rest of your garbage, in this case, the yuckier the garbage, the better.

3. Don’t use deodorants or other personal care items containing the antibiotic triclosan.

4. If you can afford it, consider organic meats, raised without a diet of antibiotics.

5. Consider a quality home water filter. Then bottle your own water if you wish. Use a glass container or one of a few water bottles on the market that aren’t plastic. Water from the best home filters will typically cost a few pennies a gallon.

Dan

Do You Actually Know What’s Inside our Tap Water?

Posted on by Scott
Alvyn Khoo

It seem to be so normal when we turn on the tap, fill the glass with tap water, drink it or just use it for cooking purposes. Besides consuming the tab water, take shower in it, water the plants with it, wash our clothes and basically our life can not live without tap water. It is so important that we can’t live without tap water nowadays because our life depends so much on the tap water. However, have you ever wonder what’s inside our tap water?

Scientifically, tap water is made of Hydrogen and Oxygen, to be more precise, it is a combination of 2 hydrogen molecules and one Oxygen molecule; H2O. Lots of the H2O make up the water and it keep in the cycle transforming from H2O (liquid form) to Hydrogen & Oxygen (gas form), and back to H2O again. So, these will go on and go on for as long as we live.

When it rains, the water is being gathered in a damp or water catchments which will be channeled to the reservoir. Water then will be filtered and treated before it reach our house as tap water. During the water treatment by the water works or local municipal, chlorine will be added to water because of low cost and high efficiency in killing just about everything hazardous in the water. Chlorine reacts with water-borne decaying organic matter like leaves, bark, sediment, etc. to create a family of chemicals called trihalomethanes and other highly toxic substances. Trihalomethanes, or THM’s, include chemicals such as chloroform, bromoform and dichlorobromethane, all of which are extremely carcinogenic. So, you know now what’s inside our tap water.

The chlorine is always at its highest acceptable level in order to be affective. Periodically, test will be carried out to ensure the chlorine level is safe for human consumption, but unfortunately there are still many ways where the tap water will be contaminated before reaching the household. When chlorine level is not sufficient to do its jobs, bacteria can re-infect the water anywhere along the distribution system within hours. It could happened in the main pipes or even the plumbing in your house, the water tank above your house or apartment, or even neighboring pollution, occasional contamination from animals either dying or defecating in the source. Those old distribution using lead and asbestos-lined water pipes, is interjecting lead and asbestos into the water supply. Sadly to say, truly what’s inside our tap water, is partly contributed by the tap water distribution networks.

Another ” what’s inside our tap water ” main concern is the presence of chemicals in our tap water. The existence other chemicals even only in trace amounts, are highly toxic and harmful to human being. Leaking underground storage tanks for gasoline or industrial solvents such as TCE (trichloroethane) end up in the groundwater or in the municipal supply through breaks or cracks in the main water pipes. The biggest family of these toxics are VOC’s or volatile organic contaminants, including various plastic, gasoline and petroleum products.

Next is the herbicidal group such as dioxin (2-4D) and lindane, used as a defoliant in modern logging operation and found in many wild and rural areas, do not neglect DDT, malathione and other toxics used in insect eradication and control. Also, the THM’s mentioned before are a big pollutant because of the amount of chlorination used nationwide. They are a separate class of chemical from chlorine itself. So, it’s so scary to know what’s inside our tap water!

I am very sure if you really aware of what’s inside our tap water, you will think the need to install a whole water filtration system is so important to purify the tap water prior to consuming it. Do not take it likely when our utmost health and wellness is concerned when find out the truth about what’s inside our tap water.

Clyde

How to Remove Chemicals Found in Tap Water: Filtered Tap Water

Posted on by Scott
Larry L. Taylor

  Chemicals found in tap water threaten the health and well being of our families.  Filtered tap water is what every home should be using.

The media has done story after story on chemicals found in tap water and the health risks that they cause.  There are literally tens of thousands of these chemical contaminants that have leaked into our water supply over the years.  When are people going to finally wake up and take this threat seriously?

Drinking filtered tap water is one of the easiest ways to avoid being exposed to these contaminants, and it’s an inexpensive option.  If you paid $125 with one replacement filter at $48.00, it would cost you $172.99 per 1000 Gal. or one year.  In a liter bottle selling for .79 that 1000 Gal. would cost you $208. 56.

I know to many of you that doesn’t sound like too big a difference, but let’s look at the second year.  You’ll go through two filters so your total per 1000 Gal. would be $96, but your bottled water will still be $208.56.  That filter would produce quite a savings while it still protected you from chemicals found in tap water.

Filtered tap water is the best answer for this problem, but some people still want the convenience of being able to take their water with them.  You can still do that by buying either polycarbonate or glass containers for their water, but you have to be careful when doing this also.

Plastic Dangerous to Water

Glass is the best material for carrying water.This is  because there are no chemicals that can leach out of the sides and become part of the water.  But not so with polycarbonate.  Bisphenol A or BPA is a chemical used in the production of polycarbonates which can leach into the water and cause you all sorts of nasty endocrine system problems.

Filtered Tap Water is Vital

The dangers of chemicals found in tap water require you to purchase a filter that gives you multi-tiered protection.   Activated carbon and multi media blockers for chemical contamination, ion exchange for heavy metals and re-mineralization, and a sub micron filter for parasites and bacteria.

You’ll find that filtered tap water will make you feel more secure about the water that you’re drinking because you’ll be able to guarantee that it’s pure.  You’ll love the money that you save over bottled water also.  Hopefully at this point in the article you are nodding your head in agreement.

We all have got to realize that our health is the greatest asset that we have and we can’t afford to lose it.  We certainly don’t want our children to lose theirs. The threat that we face from chemicals found in tap water are very real.   And that is why we have to do something about it.  Do what I and many others have done -see box below. Get a multi-tiered water filter today.

 

Julian

4 Shocking Tap Water Facts Everybody Ought To Know About

Posted on by Scott
Aaron Reese

Now that we are fully aware of how our sources of drinking water are being endangered by the many industrial waste sources such as big factories and small-scale businesses, we must all take steps to preserve the pure water we have for drinking in any way we can.

But before we can proceed with how to conserve water, Here are a few tap water facts we must take into consideration.

Fact 1 : A single family in the USA consumes around 70 to 100 gallons of water every two days for cooking, drinking and washing.

Fact 2 : Approximately 10 gallons of water a day is lost due to leaks and poor plumbing.

Fact 3 : Tap water when purified can be bottled and sold. This is the reason why people are questioning the economic implications of patronizing bottled waters. If we can boil or purify our own water at home, there would be no need to buy drinking water in plastic bottles that we will need to recycle in the future.

Fact 4 : There are many sources of contaminants in publicly treated water supplies, such as bacteria that grows in water pipes, sediments that accumulate in dams, and surface run-offs from agricultural sites.

What do these tap water facts tell us? These things alert us to the waste that could eventually prevent us from drinking pure water in the future.

This also means that the more we conserve water in our small ways (fixing our plumbing, storing water we don’t use and refraining from buying bottled water), the more we can help wastage of clean drinking water.

Also, we must question our preference for bottled water. Why make a bottling company richer when you could be buying readily available tap water purified and packaged neatly in bottles, and marketed as ‘fresh from the mountains’?

With the above tap water facts in mind, the obvious course of action is to use special water filters that are high grade and durable. Granted, the industrial-grade ones are expensive, but there are kitchen filters that can be bought online and used as soon as delivered. These don’t cost much if you consider the cash you spend on gallons of bottled water daily.

Visit my website below to discover the benefits of using kitchen filtration systems, including some of the health and financial benefits they will provide you and your family.

Lara

Five Benefits Of A Tap Water Filter

Posted on by Scott
Dewayne Blalock

If you are spending hundreds of dollars a year on bottled water, why are you not using a tap water filter? The bottled water industry is perhaps one of the most unregulated industries today. The government does not test this bottled liquid so for all you know, the manufacturer could be filling those bottles up with non-purified tap water from their homes or offices. However, if you have a tap water purifier or filter in your home, you know exactly where it water is coming from and what it will contain. Here are the benefits of using a purifier or filter in your home.

1. You will spend pennies a day as opposed to dollars a day. Most bottles costs as much as a soft drink—up to $2 a bottle in some areas. If you use a filter in your sink to purify the liquid from your faucet, you will spend a fraction of the amount.

2. You will not have to run to the local convenience store to get “purified bottle” of garbage. You can get a chemical free drink anytime you want from your own sink and the comfort of your own home.

3. A tap water purifier will cleanse all of the water in your home—including your shower. When you take a warm shower, the chemicals in it can seep into the pores of your skin and most contains harmful chemicals such as lead or chlorine. These chemicals can harm your skin so, for the health and safety of your family, use a filter to see how much your skin changes- for the better.

4. Does a “purified drink” from the store come with a guarantee or a warranty? You know the answer to that. Of course not! A tap water purifier comes with a warranty that will continue cleansing or you can exchange it for another one while the “purified” bottled industry guarantees nothing except that they will take your money.

5. You are in control of the health of your family. A purifier assures you that your family is getting the safest drinking and bathing water possible. While local governments try to regulate what chemicals are contained in your homes plumbing, accidents happen. Sewage leaks can cripple a system or terrorists can tamper with your communities local systems in hopes of poisoning residents. With a tap water filter, you know that you are protecting your family from incidents that are out of your control.

So here are your options

• You can continue to not use a filter and expose your family to harmful chemicals and the possibility of contamination.

• You can purchase a filter and rest in the knowledge that you are providing your family with pure clean water.

The choice is obvious. You should protect your family today with filters throughout your home.

Chris