Cleaning up your water: four solutions

re: Cleaning up your water: four solutions

Hilary Higgins — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 14:44:20 GMT

So if it's possible to filter out the harmful constituents why don't the water suppliers who charge us for supplying drinking water do it for us? And then regulate the beneficial minerals? What exactly are we paying for here?

re: Cleaning up your water: four solutions

Mark — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 16:00:31 GMT

If you live in any large North American city then you DO NOT NEED A WATER FILTER. You water has been filtered for you. Its clean. These little cheap home filtration systems only remove the calcium you need. They are a marketing scam based on fear/ignorance advertising. Your municipal water supplier does filter the water. If there are pharmaceuticals in your water (and I doubt there are) then they are in parts per gazillion. A lifetime consumption of tap water = the consumption of perhaps 1/4 of one aspirin, or less.

Please be better advised. If you live on a farm, fine, buy a filter system. Don't waste your money if you live in a major urban center.

re: Cleaning up your water: four solutions

May Panayi — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 16:49:12 GMT

As the plumbed in filter referred to was from the UK, I think you'll find the article applies to UK water. Which is not that safe to drink.

re: Cleaning up your water: four solutions

anita — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 17:38:35 GMT

What about fluoride removal ?

This an industrial waste product a recognised poison which accumulates in the body

It is added to west midlands water to "prevent" tooth decay in a small number of children.

re: Cleaning up your water: four solutions

Peter — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 22:28:51 GMT

Flouride will be removed by reverse osmosis. Some pharmaceuticals cannot be removed by any means except distillation. Radio active markers used by the medical industry may also be present in water supplies filtered or not.

re: Cleaning up your water: four solutions

Chuck Danner — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 05:06:11 GMT

If you live in a major American city, YOU VERY WELL MIGHT need a water filter because the levels of fluoride and chlorine are starting to become dangerously high.

Sure the water is generally safe compared to most of the worlds water systems, but its not anywhere near 100% healthy. EPA standards are questionable because the revolving doors between people working for the EPA and the private sector. EPA standards are starting to reflect private sector interests more than they reflect the interests of protecting consumers. There's a good reason for Bush & Co's gutting of America's environmental safety standards.

Fluoride IS NOT necessary for healthy teeth. Fluoride is a toxin and the only interest in adding Fluoride to municipal water is based on the sales of Fluoride to water authorities by major chemical companies. check out fluoridealert.org for more info on the dangers of Fluoride. Fluoride is being phased out in most of the Western World and there's a good reason for this... Fluoride is just plain not safe for regular consumption. But you wouldn't know this when you hear the never ending barrage of infotainment news stories telling us that Fluoride in our drinking water is necessary for healthy teeth. Not surprisingly, the American public is continually confused about Fluoride in our drinking water. The American Dental Association also has some bizarre [but understandable] connections to the fluoride industry. Again, check out Fluoridealert.org for more info on this issue.

Chlorine is added to keep harmful organisms from growing in the water, but chlorine is also a toxic chemical and it dries out your skin and scalp. People from the East Coast who move to the Midwest often find that their hair begins to fall out because their scalp is dried out. Chlorine vapor is also unsafe to breathe on a regular basis (regular basis as in a 5-10 minute daily shower).

My chlorine solution: I have a $20 SlimLine shower filter from Lowes.com; filter lasts approx 6 mos depending on the number of showers you take.

I have yet to find any credible research on the potential dangers of Distilled Water. There's one Canadien MD with reports plastered all over the internet. But when only one Canadien MD is backing this info, I'm naturally skeptical. I've also been asking every Physician I know if they know of any dangers of distilled water and they all tell me no (sure it's "professional hearsay" but still if it were bad they'd probably know).

We simply do not rely on water for our daily mineral intake. We rely on food for this. If we did rely on water for our mineral intake, we'd have to drink 5,000 glasses / day to get our recommended daily allowance. Keep in mind also that there are many dangerous minerals in water that we need to avoid, namely lead. In any case, if Distilled Water is truly lacking in necessary minerals, then it seems logical that this problem could be corrected by taking a daily OTC vitamin supplement.

What I have found in the course of my personal research on safe water filters:

1. The Pur filters are the best jug & countertop water filters on the market, and they're the highest rated by Consumer Reports. But they can be expensive and Pur filters are known to clog.

2. Brita filters are the most widely used, but they do not filter out pharmaceuticals, fluoride, and their filtration of chlorine is questionable. Brita claims to filter out the "taste and smell" of chlorine, but do they truly filter out actual chlroine ??? According to Consumer Reports, Brita filters are not very good at filtering lead.

A huge problem with Brita filters in the US is that Brita DOES NOT make it easy to recycle their filters unless US buyers want to ship them to Germany. Multiply the number of Brita filters purchased over a years time by 1 consumer (generally 6 filters / year) by the millions of people who use Brita filters... ...Billions of Brita filters clogging our landfills is not a good thing.

3. Water distillers are supposed to remove everything, but they do not remove all chlorine or pharmaceuticals (they remove some but not all). Further, the effectiveness of a distiller can only be guaranteed if it is NSF certified. The market is full of non-NSF certified distillers so buyers should be careful with what they choose to buy. The market is also full of distillers that drip into polycarbonate bottles (think BPA), and warm water and polycarbonate are now suspected to have health risks.

4. Reverse Osmosis is the only filter that removes everything, including pharmaceuticals. HOWEVER, RO systems can be very expensive and they consume several gallons of water for every gallon of clean water that they produce.

My cheap "for the time being" water filtration solution:

1. I use my SlimLine shower filter to filter out the chlorine for bathing. So far so good and my skin is no longer dried out.

2. I fill my water distiller with cold water filtered through my SlimLine shower filter. This eliminates most of the chlorine and whatever else is in the water before it even reaches the distiller.

3. I eat a water rich diet of fruits, vegetables, and I take a daily vitamin supplement just in case the Distilled Water mineral issue has any weight.

I'm in grad school so I can't afford an RO system yet. As soon as I can afford one I plan to buy the RO system for drinking water.

re: Cleaning up your water: four solutions

jloretta — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 18:43:53 GMT

use reverse osmosis and add dark Willard Water to put nutritents back in....

re: Cleaning up your water: four solutions

R.J. — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 00:13:29 GMT

If you live in a major metropolitan city you need a distilled water filtration system MORE so than in any other rural place. The reason is the fluoride and pharmaceutical drugs the government is putting into our public water systems and have been for some time.

WAKE UP and learn what is being done to your body by these people who are manipulating and deceiving you. Here is a start on your research.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sd_Mg0xCvcM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jd2efqhwJp0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGWWarqyp8I&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNUcU3ViAVg&feature=related

DO YOUR RESEARCH AND LEARN WHAT IS BEING DONE TO YOUR BODY WITHOUT YOUR KNOWLEDGE!

re: Cleaning up your water: four solutions

Fresh Distilled Water — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 13:15:35 GMT

I get all mine for my hornby trains here http://www.bobbys-healthy-shop.co.uk/shop/article_16/Distilled-Water-5-Litre.html

re: Cleaning up your water: four solutions

Jeremy — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 20:51:33 GMT

Water, like air, is so essential to life that throughout history most societies have treated it as a common, shared resource. In the United States, most people receive water from a public utility. Public water systems have been one of the great equalizers in societies around the world. But the landscape is rapidly changing.

The United Nations estimates that if current trends continue, by 2025 more than two-thirds of the world's people won't have access to enough water. Corporations are racing to turn our water--something essential for all life on this planet--into a privately held commodity, like oil. It is happening through corporate control of municipal water systems and through water bottling.

Just a handful of corporate giants are driving this global water grab, and their reach is growing. Supplying water is already a $465 billion a year business. Large scale corporate take-over of water resources is happening right now as corporations, with the help of the World Bank and other international financial institutions, are forcing cash strapped-governments to privatize their water, leaving many without basic access. If the private water industry has its way, by 2015 three times as many people around the world will rely on for-profit corporations for water services as in 1999.

In the United States today, 85 percent of people get their water from publicly owned and operated systems. However, the private water industry is expanding, often in the guise of Public-Private Partnerships. Private sector involvement in water services delivery has failed to solve most of the problems of access to water. It has also created new problems such as rate hikes, frequent contract renegotiations, and broken promises to extend or improve water services.

Check out Corporate Accountability International's water campaign and Think Outside the Bottle initiative for more info http://stopcorporateabuse.org/water-campaign