Facts You Need to Know About Drinking Water Safety

Drinking water safety has become a very hot topic. The health issues that surround our drinking water are staggering! We used to think of our water supplies as being pure. Nowadays, there’s no telling what’s coming out of your drinking water faucets at home. Fortunately, there’s an easy solution to this whole issue. Let me explain.

Our municipal treatment plants are fifty to one hundred years old. They were built, for the most part, to combat pollutants and impurities like cholera, a waterborne disease that used to routinely kill thousands. The way these ancient treatment plants work is sediment beds are used to filter out the debris, while chlorine is used to kill bacteria and other germs. The chlorine is left in the water after it leaves the treatment plant to insure that the water does not become re-infected.

Unfortunately, these treatment methods are not up to today’s broad range of pollutant and impurity. Drinking water safety is once again a big issue for anyone interested in their long term health.

Everything from pesticides to prescription drugs could easily be coming out of your home’s drinking water faucets. Recent studies have found traces of pesticides in 29 out of 29 cities studied. If you’re drinking well water then the chances of your having these powerful chemicals in your water are even greater.

Bottled water is no better, even though there’s been an explosion in the market for this product recently. There are actually fewer restrictions covering bottled water than there are municipal water. For instance, there is no minimum amount of e. coli bacteria allowed in bottled water. To insure your own drinking water safety you need to learn about the various water filtration systems that are currently on the market.

Let’s talk about this.

There are several common methods of filtering water at home. Distillation, reverse osmosis, and carbon and ceramic filtration are among the most prevalent. Each of these has its pros and cons. Distillation works well unless you’re filtering water that has volatile chemicals in it. Volatile means the chemical can be turned into a gas. This lets the harmful chemical pass through the distillation system and into the supposedly pure water.

Reverse osmosis works well also, except it dimineralizes the water. That is it takes out those trace minerals we need for health, like potassium and calcium. Carbon and ceramic filters work well, too–especially in conjunction with other filtering methods.

The bottom line is all of your drinking water faucets at home need to be filtered. You can buy a filter for each, or you can buy a whole house filter. In the long run, the whole house filter will probably save you money. It will also be less hassle to maintain. Drinking water safety is not an issue you can ignore. You need clean, pure drinking water for your health and for your family’s health.

By:R. Lee Cole