Understanding Contaminants: What’s Really in Your Tap Water?
Water comes from nature, which should mean it’s perfectly safe to drink — and in an ideal world, that’s exactly what would happen. However, contaminants lurk around every corner, compromising the quality of your tap water.
Why?
In this blog, we dive into what’s really in your tap water, how it got there, why it’s dangerous for your health, and what you can do to ensure that you’re drinking only clean and pure water.
What Are the Most Common Contaminants in Drinking Water?
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has outlined some of the more prevalent contaminants making their way to your tap. These include:
- Microbial contaminants (bacteria, viruses, protozoa).
- Microorganisms (E. coli, giardia, noroviruses).
- Inorganic chemicals (lead, arsenic).
- Organic chemicals (atrazine, glyphosate).
- Disinfection byproducts (chloroform).
- Fertilizer, pesticides, manure, sewage.
But wait a minute. If you get your tap water from a public system, isn’t it treated?
Yes, it is — or, it should be, at least. However, one tricky part is that pollutants can get into the water in the distribution system after the water has already been treated. This is why your tap water, despite being filtered, might still be contaminated.
Consider, too, the roughly 43 million people in the US (15%) who have private well water. These folks are responsible for testing and purifying their own water — the city isn’t doing it for them. So, if they’re not diligent in checking their water for threatening contaminants, they might be consuming and bathing in them.
Keep in mind that the contaminants in your tap water — and the concentrations they exist at — can vary depending on where you live. For instance, if you reside in an area with heavy construction or in close proximity to livestock, you might be more exposed.
Are These Contaminants Really That Dangerous for Our Health?
They certainly can be. Let’s look at a few examples.
Lead typically gets into the water due to the corrosion of the pipes that the water travels through. Faucets and other fixtures can also contribute. Lead is more commonly found in homes built before 1986. This was when the EPA amended the Safe Drinking Water Act, stating that public water systems had to use plumbing that was lead-free. It can still find its way into the tap water of newer homes, though.
Lead exposure can be dangerous for children in particular. Even low levels of exposure can damage their central and peripheral nervous systems, contribute to learning disabilities, impair their hearing, and damage the formation and function of their blood cells.
What about pesticides? There are approximately 4.4 billion applications of pesticides per year in the US to homes, gardens, and yards. But just because they’re common doesn’t mean they’re safe.
While we need pesticides to protect our crops and raw materials, science knows for a fact that exposure can result in immunosuppression, hormone disruption, and even cancer. It can lead to the onset of Parkinson’s disease, reduced attention span, memory problems, reproductive issues, birth defects, reduced vision, headaches, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, coma, and death.
So, even if you can’t see, taste, or smell them — even if your tap water seems totally “normal” — these pollutants might still be present. And if there are contaminants in your water, they absolutely could be negatively impacting your health.
These risks can be even greater for children, pregnant women, the elderly, and the immunocompromised.
How to Test Your Water for Contamination
There are many water testing kits you can buy online for around $30. They often test for a number of contaminants, commonly including chlorine, fluoride, bacteria, lead, and iron. They’re meant to be accessible and user-friendly, so often, they work with a color-coded system that tells you what levels these contaminants are at.
While these kits can provide interesting insight into the quality of your tap water, testing for contaminants is only part of the equation. Once you find out how polluted your drinking water is, what can you do about it?
The Latest Technology for Water Purification
Maybe you have a refrigerator water filter, or a Brita attachment for your faucet, and think that those are good enough. Are they better than nothing? Maybe. However, there’s one major problem: The filters that these run-of-the-mill purchases use aren’t nearly finite enough to target the nasty contaminants floating around your tap water. In simple terms, the holes in the filter still allow several kinds of contaminants through.
What type of filter do you need, then? It takes something called reverse osmosis (RO) to get the job done.
The filter that reverse osmosis uses is more powerful than anything you’ll find in a Brita purchase. It’s so finite and precise that the only thing that can get through it is water molecules. This means that it can eliminate up to 99% of contaminants, such as heavy metals, microplastics, forever chemicals, and arsenic.
The Sans Difference
The Sans water purifier takes it a step further with a four-layer reverse osmosis filter that can remove impurities as small as 0.0001 microns in size. Additionally, it uses UV-C purification to demolish pathogens like viruses and bacteria that can make you sick.
The water quality monitor gives you real-time peace of mind, the purifier instantly dispenses hot water, the countertop design is sleek and modern, and the glass pitcher (which stays full automatically) is removable so that you can bring it with you throughout your home or office. Plus, it’s cost-efficient: The filters last 12 to 24 months.
If you need to stay hydrated on the go, consider the self-cleaning water bottle, which uses UV-C light purification. The bottle is double-wall vacuum insulated, keeping water hot for 12 hours and cold for 24 hours.
If something goes in or on your body, shouldn’t it be high-quality? A reverse osmosis water filter is the key to unlocking crystal-clear drinking water.