|
Should You Filter Tap Water To Help Eliminate Harmful Micro Organisms And Other Pollutants?
You may wonder if it’s necessary to filter tap water. After all, don’t municipalities have a responsibility to make sure that only safe, drinkable water is delivered to people’s homes? Sophisticated water purification methods used by water treatment plants are designed to eliminate harmful micro organisms and other pollutants and make water safe for human consumption, so why would you need a filter? Tap water may be safe to drink in that it may not harm you or make you ill the way water in some parts of the world might, but that doesn’t mean that it’s pure. In fact, most tap water is far from pure. Tap water is deemed safe to drink when pollutants found in the water are below a certain level. That means that some of these substances may still be present, but they are sufficiently diluted that they are considered to be harmless. One such pollutant is e-coli, which is commonly found in raw sewage. Water that has a low enough coliform count to be considered safe to drink still contains coliforms, but is routinely piped into millions of homes. That alone is a good reason to filter tap water, but there are plenty of other good reasons. Chlorine is also routinely added to water to eliminate any residual bacteria that water treatment processes may have missed. This leaves water with an unpleasant bleach smell and taste. Another problem is that even when water leaves the water treatment facility in a drinkable state, it must travel through many miles of plumbing before reaching your home. Many years ago, lead pipe was commonly used for water, but once we learned that lead is a deadly poison, plumbing everywhere needed to be upgraded to copper or plastic. However, there are still some areas where not all pipes have been upgraded yet and some lead pipe still exists. This is especially true of older houses and apartment buildings. Water that has to travel through these older pipes may contain lead and other metals by the time it reaches your kitchen faucet. A simple remedy for this problem is to filter tap water with an on the faucet water filter or a water filtration pitcher. Devices such as these are an inexpensive way to dramatically improve the taste and quality of your tap water. These types of filters are based on a simple yet effective concept. The filter cartridge contains layers of sand and charcoal, which filter impurities out of the water as it passes through the layers. Charcoal is known for its ability to remove metals, chlorine and other impurities, and it is responsible for the vast improvement that you will notice in the flavor of your tap water. The layers of sand effectively trap larger particles such as algae, sediment and even some types of bacteria. Filtering your tap water with one of these simple filters will make a world of difference in the way that the water tastes and it will also remove any trace of metals and other contaminants that are not removed by the water treatment plant. To read more about related subjects, please follow these links:
|