Don’t Let Your Child be the Water Filter

We all know how important it is to drink clean water for good health. Once my daughter was born, this became a much more urgent matter. I became much more aware of the challenge of providing clean, healthy water for her, my wife, as well as my own health. Because a child's body is developing, it is even more important what they take in. I found myself doing research on my options to provide the best water I could for my loved one.

It’s surprising for most of us to imagine that clean and safe water is an issue if we live in developed countries. Our water supplies are considered reliable and safer. Yet they are not as up to date as you might think. For example, the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) conducted a comprehensive examination of the health of U.S water and revealed that 55 percent of all waterways in the US were considered to be in poor condition, while just 21 percent of the waters were considered good.

Most municipalities are not able to remove many contaminants from water.  Worse, some of these may actually be harmful. In 2008, a study by the Associated Press revealed that a vast array of pharmaceuticals or byproducts in treated drinking water of at least 41 million Americans including medicines for pain, infection, high cholesterol, asthma, epilepsy, mental illness and heart problems. A sex hormone was detected in San Francisco’s drinking water. So how do these pharmaceutical and byproduct contaminants get in our water? According to Associated Press, the drug residues detected in water supplies are generally flushed into sewers and waterways through human excretion. Our municipal water treatments do not remove these, so they just continue to build up in our water supply.

These types of contaminants can create dangerous health issues to people especially young children, pregnant women. Currently, the federal government doesn’t require any testing and hasn’t set safety limits for drugs in water. As a matter of fact, there are many contaminants in our water that are not regulated.

Part of the challenge is that our water system infrastructure is heavily underfunded, and it is being strained by growing populations and economic development. According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, and estimated 7 billion gallons of water is leaking from pipes, each day! And those broken seals also let contaminants in as well, as in Colorado. The also reported that 30 percent of pipes are between 40 and 80 year old.

What can we do?

It is safe to say, if you don't filter your water, your body is the filter. But you can start taking action today and take control of your family’s health by following these tips:

1. Knowledge is key; know how safe and clean your water is by using the interactive Diagnose Your Drinking Water tool by the Water Quality Association.
2. Seek other safer alternatives for water filtration such as distillation, or reverse osmosis filtration. Both of these methods will, for the most part, remove the vast majority of the dissolved solids in your water, and allow you to have great tasting water, which is also free of things, which, should not be in our water.
3. Invest in some BPA free bottles to carry water around with you and your family. There are plenty of high quality and well-designed bottles like bkr, or lifefactory.

Source:

1. Malewitz, Jim. “EPA Warns of Poor U.S.Water Quality”. Governing.com, Energy & Environment Section. Mar 2013. Web. Feb 2014. <http://www.governing.com/news/state/sl-epa-warns-of-poor-us-water-quality.html>

2. “The Importance of Clean Water”. Gracelinks.org. n.p, n.d. Feb 2014. <http://www.gracelinks.org/2382/the-importance-of-clean-water>

3. “AP: Drugs found in drinking water”. USA Today. n.p, Sept 2008. Feb 2014. <http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-03-10-drugs-tap-water_N.htm?loc>

About David Schulhof: David Schulhof is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, and the founder of Living Sunlight, a health and wellness platform (Launching April 2014), which will make it easy for consumers to find and get products that support a healthy lifestyle. The company just launched Stanford Water Purification System, a compact and portable water filter system using Reverse Osmosis technology. At this stage, the company is seeking additional funds to help fund volume production and obtain the necessary certifications to make this product accessible to lower income families using Government subsidies. To do so, they are pushing out their first Indiegogo Campaign on February 17, 2014. On top of that, for every funded unit on Indiegogo, the company will donate $4 to Charity: Water, a non-profit organization that brings safe and clean water to people in developing nations.