Clean drinking water is an invaluable commodity that should be preserved. Recent headlines about contamination of public water systems, arsenic in private wells and potentially health-harmful PFAS chemicals (which could contribute to chronic illnesses) has brought home the importance of choosing an ideal system for your home.
Considerations must be given when selecting the type of membrane filtration system appropriate to you, including water quality expectations and maintenance needs.
Cost
Clean drinking water is one of the best ways to promote overall human and animal health and well-being. Unsafe water may lead to illnesses including digestive ailments and reproductive problems as well as environmental harm that threatens habitats and their inhabitants.
Drinking water is an inalienable right, essential to breaking the cycle of poverty and stimulating economic development in regions. Achieve safe management can also enhance living conditions and productivity within these communities, thus driving economic development forward.
However, access to safe and clean water may not always be accessible to those in need. According to estimates, poor families spend an estimated 200 million hours each day traveling between collection sites for water. Instead of spending this valuable time traveling back and forth to collect their supply of freshwater, this time could be better utilized in education, economic activities or spiritual growth. In order to address this issue, Cross Catholic Outreach has initiated Quench Your Thirst – an awareness campaign with the goal of expanding global access to clean drinking water sources.
Space
Storage tanks and containers for water should be located in cool, dry environments away from direct sunlight and should be well insulated and sealed to prevent contaminant leakage. Furthermore, children and pets should not have access to them and gasoline, kerosene and pesticides must not come in contact with it – which could introduce contaminants that leach chemicals into it.
Consider your household’s water usage and daily quota in order to determine its required capacity. A POU filter could treat only drinking water while a whole-house system could treat all uses.
Safe drinking water and sanitation are an essential human right. They contribute to healthy environments, livelihoods and education; strengthen agricultural production and community development; and promote climate resiliency. Water also plays a key role in fighting disease, death and poverty while offering opportunities to live healthier and more prosperous lives; this is why the Biden-Harris Administration invests heavily in water and sanitation projects–supporting local leaders such as cocoa farmer Stephen Akubila from Ghana who now spends less time travelling for clean water allowing him more time planting his crops thanks to clean water being delivered right at his farm.
Contaminants
Chemical and biological contaminants can have a serious impact on the quality of drinking water, often leading to health issues like cancer or reproductive disorders.
Human activity such as farming and mining typically lead to water contamination; however, natural events like storms can also pollute drinking water sources.
To protect public health, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sets legal limits for chemicals found in drinking water called Maximum Contaminant Levels (MCLs). MCLs reflect how much of a particular contaminant people can safely consume over their lifetimes.
Perchlorate and PFOA/PFOS, chemical cousins of Teflon, are not subject to regulation at all. Other chemicals, like 1,4-dioxane (a carcinogen), may leach out from PVC pipes into drinking water supplies. As levels can change over time, monitoring should take place regularly – if your drinking water comes from a public system ask them for an annual contaminant report mailed along with your water bill or available online that provides details about which contaminants were detected along with how much was detected.
Taste and Odor
Water carries with it many of the smells and tastes that we encounter throughout our daily lives, yet these usually pose no threat to health.
Ordinary water may produce unpleasant odors and tastes that indicate other issues; metallic tastes and odors can often be traced back to household plumbing systems leaching copper and iron into drinking water supplies, leaving behind green stains in sinks and bathtubs. Taste and odor changes could also indicate high levels of chlorine used for disinfection purposes or natural organic carbon in the form of trichloramines in drinking water sources.
EPA establishes standards, known as Secondary Maximum Contaminant Levels (SMCL), to regulate nuisance contaminants such as taste and odor that do not pose direct threats to human health; they are instead determined based on aesthetic considerations. Earthy or musty tastes or odors could be due to seasonal changes in Bull Run surface water due to increasing algae populations during summer.