ABOUT FILPURE FILTRATION
Water filters have a long history as a method of water purification, beginning as early as 2000 b.c.e. in ancient Egypt. Filtration has evolved from the simple Hippocratic sleeve of ancient Greece, made from cloth, to the complicated solid block carbon and multimedia water filters currently on the market. Water filtration is now the premier method of water purification, removing more water contaminants, more efficiently, than any other technique.
The Process:
The Filpure filtration process involves some type of filter media, over which water flows. This filter media blocks passage of contaminants through physical obstruction, chemical adsorption, or a combination of both processes. Material construction of the filter media varies widely, but the most effective medias are made from carbon or a combination of carbon with other elements. Filpure Modern filtration technology allows water filters to remove more and more contaminants through the chemical process of adsorption. In the adsorption process, contaminants are encouraged to break their bond with water molecules and chemically adhere to the filter media. Generally, water goes through several stages of filtration to ensure that each filter media will remove the ultimate number of contaminants. Water normally passes through a water filter at a relatively low speed, in order to ensure adequate contact time with the filter media. Once the water has passed through the required stages of filtration, it emerges as pure drinking water, free from contamination.
The Truth About Bottled Water
Is it really better than tap water?
Water has always been essential to our body's system and our survival, but lately, it has become one of the most recent fitness crazes as people all over the world seek to gain the certified health benefits of drinking adequate amounts of water. Although people used to rely largely upon tap water to fulfill their daily quota of drinking water, in the last two decades, consumers have begun to shy away from this water source, due to such public health scares as the 1993 Milwaukee cryptosporidium outbreak that infected more than 400,000 city residents. Bottled water companies, promising a purer, healthier water product than tap water, have expanded greatly in order to supply growing demands for quality drinking water.
In the year 2003, Americans alone spent more than $7 billion on bottled water at an average cost of more than $1 a bottle.
Clearly, the bottled water industry is here to stay, but is the price of bottled water really worth it? Do consumers truly receive a better water product for their money? This article will seek to answer these questions by exposing some little-known truths about bottled water.
Natural Spring Water or Reconstituted Tap Water?
Recent allegations against a large company and its brand name of bottled water, have publicly highlighted one of the biggest misconceptions about the quality of bottled water. This company, advertising its bottled water as "pure, still water," is now being investigated for misleading consumers about the true nature of the contents of its bottles. Rather than deriving its water from natural springs, This company had actually been filling its bottles with purified tap water.
Of course, this problem of reconstituted tap water in bottles would not be so large if it was an isolated incident. Unfortunately, the process of bottling tap water is not only limited to the large company. In 1999, the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) published the results of a four-year study in which researchers tested more than 1,000 samples of 103 brands of bottled water. These researchers found that,
"An estimated 25 percent or more of bottled water is really just tap water in a bottle—sometimes further treated, sometimes not."
In one case, a brand of bottled water, advertised as "pure, glacier water," was found to be taken from a municipal water supply while another brand, flaunted as "spring water," was pumped from a water source next to a hazardous waste dumping site. While "purified tap water" is arguably safer and purer than untreated tap water (depending upon the purification methods), a consumer should expect to receive something more than reconstituted tap water for the exceptional prices of bottled water.
If bottled water does not necessarily offer purer water than tap water, surely it provides a better tasting water product, right? The answer to this question is no. Bottled water does not always taste better than tap water.
In an interesting study conducted by Showtime television, the hosts found that 75% of tested New York City residents actually preferred tap water over bottled water in a blind taste test.
While taste is certainly highly subjective, this study shows that bottled water essentially holds nothing over tap water. In many cases, bottled water is no purer than tap water, and it may not even taste bette
Standards and Regulations for Bottled Water
Bottled water, because it is defined as a "food" under federal regulations, is under the authority of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) while the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)—under much stricter standards—regulates tap water. Thus, bottled water, depending upon the brand, may actually be less clean and safe than tap water. The EPA mandates that local water treatment plants provide city residents with a detailed account of tap water's source and the results of any testing, including contaminant level violations. Bottled water companies are under no such directives.
Also, while municipal water systems must test for harmful microbiological content in water several times a day, bottled water companies are required to test for these microbes only once a week.
Similarly, public water systems are required to test for chemical water contaminants four times as often as bottled water companies. In addition, loopholes in the FDA's testing policy do not require the same standards for water that is bottled and sold in the same state, meaning that a significant number of bottles have undergone almost no regulation or testing.
Even under the more lax standards of the FDA, bottled water companies do not always comply with standardized contaminant levels.
Alarmingly, the 1999 NRDC study found that 18 of the 103 bottled water brands tested contained, in at least one sample, "more bacteria than allowed under microbiological-purity guidelines."
Also, about one fifth of the brands tested positive for the presence of synthetic chemicals, such as industrial chemicals and chemicals used in manufacturing plastic like phthalate, a harmful chemical that leaches into bottled water from its plastic container. In addition, bottled water companies are not required to test for cryptosporidium, the chlorine-resistant protozoan that infected more than 400,000 Milwaukee residents in 1993. Bottled water companies, because they are not under the same accountability standards as municipal water systems, may provide a significantly lower quality of water than the water one typically receives from the tap.
The Effects of Bottled Water on the Environment
It is hard to argue the fact that waste management has become a large problem in the world, with landfills growing to enormous sizes and recycling rates remaining dismally low. The number of plastic bottles produced by the bottled water industry and subsequently discarded by consumers has only exacerbated this problem.
According to a 2001 report of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), roughly 1.5 million tons of plastic are expended in the bottling of 89 billion liters of water each year.
Besides the sheer number of plastic bottles produced each year, the energy required to manufacture and transport these bottles to market severely drains limited fossil fuels. Bottled water companies, due to their unregulated use of valuable resources and their production of billions of plastic bottles have presented a significant strain on the environment.
The authors of the WWF report suggested that water bottles be washed and reused in order to lessen their negative impact on the environment. Unfortunately, reusing plastic bottles further compromises the quality of the water, due to the fact that more and more phthalate leaches its way into the water as the bottle gets older. In another suggestion, the authors recommended that bottled water companies use local bottling facilities in order to lessen fuel expenditures for transportation needs. Regrettably, local bottling further compromises water quality due to the reduced health standards for in-state bottled water production and consumption. It seems there is no feasible solution to this problem. The bottled water industry causes a severe strain on the environment, but solutions to this environmental damage significantly lessen the quality of water in the bottles.
Why Choose Filtered Water?
Bottled water, due to several factors, is clearly not a healthier or purer alternative to tap water. Also, bottled water is outrageously expensive when compared to the cost per gallon of tap water. If one is choosing only between tap water and bottled water, tap water is plainly the more economical, and, in many cases, the healthier choice. Despite this assertion, tap water does not remain without its problems.
The concerns over the quality and safety of tap water that sparked the growth of the bottled water industry are still entirely present.
Tap water is no where near free from dangerous contaminants.
The most recent and innovative solution to the problems of low water quality has come about in the age of water filters.
Water filters currently provide the best and healthiest solution to the problems of both bottled water and tap water.
Water filters remove more dangerous contaminants than any other purification method, and they are uniquely designed to work with municipally treated water. The water they produce is not subject to phthafflate contamination, and they are able to remove cryptosporidium from drinking water, a feat that neither municipal water treatment plants nor bottled water companies have yet managed. Also, drinking filtered water is a much more economical practice than drinking bottled water. The pure water product of a water filter costs very little more than untreated tap water. Furthermore, because water filters use no more energy than is already required to propel water through a home's plumbing system, they circumvent several of the environmental problems of the bottled water industry.
At this point in time, there is simply no better choice-for purity and economy-than filtered water.
