What You Need to Know About Our Water Supply
As a health or wellness coach, or even a holistic nutrition coach, you have likely discussed the important aspects of water, hydration, and overall well-being. However, you are about to discover the topic “water” is far more complex when it comes to humans and longevity.
In the United States, our drinking water comes from two sources (unless it is imported from France, Fiji or the like). It comes from above-ground resources like lakes and rivers or from underground aquifers or wells.
How Much Waste is Dumped Into Water?
When looking at our water supply you must take a step back for a moment and look at what is dumped into our current streams, lakes, rivers, and the natural environment. Industries that regularly dump into our rivers include industrial feed lots, sewage waste and sludge, and factories including fertilizer, chemical, metal, and plastic. The EPA “closely monitors and regulates” these discharges but is run and enforced by individual states and their municipalities (and may not be actively enforced).
Other chemicals found in our water supply come from prescription and over-the-counter drugs, dietary supplements, hormones, antibiotics, cleaning agents, and other products. Many of these chemicals cannot be completely metabolized by the human body. Also, many are endocrine-disrupting compounds or chemicals (EDCs) that either block or mimic natural hormones, thereby disrupting the normal functioning of organs. The EPA currently does not have any enforceable standards for pharmaceuticals and our water supplies, and our sewage systems are not equipped for pharmaceutical removal.
To learn more about your city’s water supply, order their annual water quality report. The reports are also sent out to customers by July 1st of each year. There you’ll begin to uncover what lurks in your drinking water supply including contaminants and chemicals like chlorine and chloramines (which are toxic to fish and amphibians and will kill them).
How to Filter Your Water At Home
It is important to know what’s in your water supply, so you know what you need to filter out. This will help you choose the best water filter for you and your family. The report also gives you a summary of water sources i.e. lakes, rivers, aquifers, reservoirs). To further uncover what’s really in your tap water send a sample to the lab and have it tested. You can visit the EPAs page on Ground Water and Drinking Water to learn more.
Many cities are now switching from chlorine to chloramines to disinfect municipal water (if you have fish and were to put your fish in water with chloramines the fish would die). Chlorine in water has been associated with increased cancer and rectal cancer rates. Chloramines are a combination of chlorine and ammonia. Chloramines are respiratory irritants, that can trigger asthma, irritate your skin, cause dry skin and hair, irritate your eyes, and are tougher to filter out than chlorine. To effectively filter out chloramines (chlorine and ammonia), a catalytic carbon filter is required with a reverse osmosis system or a whole house water filtration system which can get expensive.
If you can’t afford a whole-house water filtration system, look for a catalytic carbon filtration system. Activated carbons remove some chloramines. I don’t recommend those inexpensive pitchers or the ones that screw onto a faucet, as they don’t remove chloramines. If you buy a water filtration system, get something a little more sophisticated than the standard carbon-filtration pitchers.
You can also select point-of-use devices that purify water on tap (drinking water, showerheads, and bathtub taps). You may also opt for a point-of-entry device that purifies water where it enters your home. Other solutions include reverse osmosis and glass distillation. Your choice will depend on multiple factors like budget and needs. We recommend buying the best system you can afford, taking into consideration the overall cost of the unit and the time and money spent on replacement components.
If you must consume unfiltered tap water, let it run for a few minutes to flush out any lead that has leached from surrounding pipes. When cooking, use only cold water. If your hot water comes from a hot-water tank, there is a chance it may contain lead, asbestos or other pollutants. You may want to consider switching to a tankless water heater when the time is right—a move that will also shave costs off your utility bill.
Is Bottled Water Better for Your Health?
No. If your water supply comes from large flats of plastic water bottles, I recommend changing this habit. Bottled water can be up to 10,000 times more expensive than the equivalent from the tap. So, if you are looking to adjust your budget this is a great place to begin. This will save you money and hopefully get you are drinking cleaner water. Most bottled water is just tap water. And to make it worse, the plastic bottles it comes in often leach chemicals into the water. The bottles are often made of PVC (polyvinyl chloride), which is an environmental hazard in itself.
The amazing researchers at the Environmental Working Group published the results of an investigation proving that the purity of many store-bought bottles of H2O cannot be trusted.
Highlights – and hard truths – of the report include that in 10 unnamed brands (typical of research studies, but what EWG dubs a ‘representative snapshot’ of bottled water brands), the following common urban wastewater pollutants were found:
- Caffeine
- Pharmaceuticals (Tylenol)
- Heavy metals and minerals including arsenic and radioactive isotopes
- Fertilizer residue (nitrate and ammonia)
- A broad range of other, tentatively identified industrial chemicals used as solvents, plasticizers, viscosity-decreasing agents, and propellants.
And we’re paying for this? Plastics can also leach chemicals into your water, and the containers create a severe pollution problem that is simply polluting our oceans and landfills.
If you insist on buying water, buy it from a local company that delivers it in glass bottles, or install a water filtration system in your home.
Water Conservation
70% of our planet is covered in water. The majority is unusable for daily living. 97% of the earth’s water is salt water, and 2% is frozen in ice caps and glaciers. That just leaves 1% of our planet’s water available for use.
Much household water is wasted through drips, leaks, and laziness. A dripping faucet, for example, can waste up to 2,000 gallons of water a year. The combined factors of rising temperatures, drought, population growth, urban sprawl, waste and excess are leading to water shortages in the United States.
More water is used in the bathroom than in any other place inside the house. The kitchen comes in second. Start by checking your indoor faucets, toilets, and showerheads for leaks. If you are a do-it-yourself person, grab your wrench and washers, or call your local plumber and hand him a list of things to check.
The quickest way to lower your household water consumption is by training the family not to leave the water on while you brush your teeth, wash your face and do the dishes. Put aerators on all your faucets. They work by decreasing water flow, by mixing in air, and turning a continuous water stream into many small droplets. They will cut your water usage at the sink by 40%.
We all set our priorities and make lifestyle choices. Some of these choices are things we are not willing to give up. I love baths. Knowing that my bathtub holds 60 gallons of water, however, encourages me to cut my consumption elsewhere.
For your child’s bathroom, follow these tips:
- consider motion-activated taps in the children’s bathroom
- plug the bathtub before you start the water
10,000 gallons of water is wasted per year waiting on the hot water to heat up. Adjust the initial burst of water by adding more hot water. Cutting water use, reduces greenhouse gasses and shrinks your utility bills.
Top Tips for Reducing Your Water Consumption That Will Save You Money!
- Check faucets, pipes, and toilets for leaks. They can waste thousands of gallons of water per year.
- Install aerators on all of your faucets in the house. This can reduce your water flow by up to two gallons per minute.
- Turn off the water while brushing your teeth, washing your face, and or shaving. If you need to, fill the water basin with water for washing or shaving.
- When washing fruits and veggies, fill the sink basin with water instead of running them under continuously flowing water. For easy do-it-yourself cleaning, add a couple of tablespoons of distilled white vinegar and 20-30 drops of grapefruit seed extract.
- When washing dishes, remember to scrape your food scraps into your compost bin instead of using water to wash it down the drain. This will also prevent clogs in your pipes!
- Install a low-flow showerhead to reduce your shower water consumption by 20-60%.
- Install a toilet dam in your toilet if your toilet was installed before 1992. It can reduce your toilet’s water consumption by up to 35%.
- When you are ready, replace your old toilet with a modern low-flush toilet. New models use about half the water of old toilets.
- When your budget is ready, update old appliances and replace them with water-efficient appliances like a front-loading washing machine, and low water use dishwasher. Wash only full loads of each.
- Landscape your property with native plants that don’t require a lot of water.
- Use a rain barrel to collect water and use it to irrigate your lawn and garden.
- Sweep your driveway instead of hosing it down. This will also prevent heavy metals and oils from your car from going straight into storm drains.
- Wash your car with a waterless car wash product. It will save you time, water, and money on expensive car washes.
- If you have a pool, use a pool cover to prevent evaporation and keep in the heat.
Where Can I Learn More?
If this topic interests you, you will also want to consider professional training, certification, and career opportunities as a Certified Holistic Nutrition Coach, Certified Holistic Life Coach, Certified Wellness Coach, or Certified Master Health and Wellness Coach.
You can also check out these other blogs posts:
Click the links below to learn more about Living Green:
- What is Green Living?
- Can a Green Living Lifestyle Help Prevent Disease?
- Reasons That Going Green and Sustainable Living Makes Sense
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