How safe is your tap drinking water? it’s possible pesticides or contaminants could be flowing from your faucet.
Public water systems, tap waters are tested and regulated by the government. By law, municipalities have to test the water and report to consumers once a year. They can test once a year, four times a year, sometimes less. They test for 90 contaminants like copper, arsenic, lead. There is a report that tells you what’s in the water and if it’s dangerous. But they average the results. So if you live in an agricultural area, pesticides in the water spike in the spring because those results don’t show up in your water report.
There are many contaminants, and many of them the government doesn’t perform safety tests on. We think they should test for more than they are.
Good Housekeeping tested some of the filtration devices out there that people are using. Here’s how they did the study?
They paired up with the lab for emerging contaminants at the university of Arizona. With the Good Housekeeping research institute they tested refrigerator water filters and tabletop water filters to see how they filter out the most prevalent of untested contaminants.
Starting with the refrigerator. the first is the GE refrigerator water filter. If you have a GE fridge, here’s how did they measure up?
The GE refrigerator filters took out 92% of contaminants Good Housekeeping tested for, the dirty 15 except for BPA. It took out 90% of that in all but the first two readings.
The water filters are easy to install, the big problem is remembering to change them.
Whirlpool refridgerator water filters removed 92% of all contaminants. This is in a lot of whirlpool refrigerators as well as Amana and Maytag.
Water filters for table top pitchers are similar. Zero water, for example took out 95% of estrin, ibuprofen and bpa and 80% of a number of pesticides. The flow rate also affects the filtering. Faster flow rate could mean lesser quality filtration.
Pur table top water filters took out 100% of estrin and 81% of other chemicals and drugs.
Change your water filter frequently. Remember, contaminants get trapped in water filters. The older the water filters, the less effective they are at water filtration. So, how often should you change the water filter?
Generally grocery store brand water filters give you a gallon or a time amount between two and four months. Much easier to monitor with the time. But nobody is measuring how many gallons of water they are pouring.
Good Housekeeping took measurements at four times to see how it performed throughout the test.
Brita took out 60% of all the drugs. Good Housekeeping found halfway into its life it began to perform less well. So on the back end it didn’t do as well.
Brita commented on the tests performed by Good Housekeeping and said: “This isn’t an easy study to understand because of the complexity of water filtration. Without further details from the lab tests we are unable to address the effectiveness of the test procedures in this particular instance.”
But Good Housekeeping is confident in the procedures used to test Brita water filters.
Good Housekeeping replied: They spent more than a year on the tests. “We tested all the filters the way a consumer would. we didn’t force water through faster or slower. We didn’t alter the devices. We’re confident. But the bottom line is, filtering is better than not filtering.”
Now for bottled water. This is what the consumer views as their solution for drinking better water.
Bottled water is amazingly not covered under the safe drinking water act. The FDA oversees it. But the FDA doesn’t require that companies disclose testing methods. Three years ago the environmental working group found a number of contaminants in bottled water. So as far as bottled is concerned there are no guarantees of anything.
Here’s The Video:
RESEARCH LINKS FOR SAFE DRINKING WATER
Alkaviva Ultra Water™ Filtration: http://www.teamalkaviva.com/healthalkaline
Find Out What Doctor Oz Wrote EPA Standards: http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/how-safe-your-drinking-water
Do your own research. Find out who to contact to obtain your city water report: http://cfpub.epa.gov/safewater/ccr/index.cfm
To find out if there have been any water violations in your area enter your zip code below.
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