How to fix water quality
You are what you drink
Our water is not fit for drinking.
And no, I’m not talking about countries without modern plumbing, but “developed” countries.
While our water might not carry cholera or hepatitis, it does supply a soup of toxic pollutants that any health-aware person should hesitate to drink.
In this post I will briefly cover the types of pollutants prevalent in our water, and more importantly, what techniques you can use to fix your water.
Types of Pollutants
There are several different categories of toxins present in water. Each of them has a different source, and they can harm you in different ways.
It’s important to have a cursory understanding of them so you can choose the best source of water that meets your circumstances.
Accidental Additives
These are a class of toxic compounds that enters water by accident as a product of human error.
They are inherently unnatural. No one wants them there, and no one thinks they’re good, but the constraints of economics and convenience, or just ageing infrastructure, make them an unfortunate reality for many users of the water system.
These are also the types of pollutants that municipal authorities are most likely to attempt to hide or sweep under the rug.
They’ll never tell you that it’s a good thing, but they may try to downplay the severity in the interest of avoiding scandal.
Examples include:
Pesticide and runoff from industrial farming or manufacturing (Gen-x in North Carolina, pesticides in groundwater)
Heavy metals from the plumbing system itself (lead in Flint, MI)
Pharmaceuticals that linger in the water system (birth control in the water)
Micro-plastics in water bottles and other storage containers
Acids from air pollution and acid rain
There’s something new every day, and banning these chemicals is a start, but permanently solve the problem.
As long as society is obsessed with the creation and proliferation of artificial substances across all areas of our life, novel chemicals will always find a way to sneak in to the system, poisoning people for years until/if they are identified and removed.
Purposeful Additives
Perhaps more insidious than the accidental chemicals are the toxic substances added on purpose by municipal “authorities” who use your tax money to do so.
These most often include:
Chlorine and chloramines
Fluoride
It is beyond the purpose of this article to describe in detail all the harmful effects of these additives, but it shouldn’t be too difficult to imagine why drinking bleach isn’t good for you.
While some may say that they’ve been helpful in solving other, more serious public health concerns (such as bacterial diseases), the simple fact is that we shouldn’t need to add artificial additives to our water in the first place.
There are far superior ways to clean water than by the addition of bleach. Do not listen to people who would rather you settle for mediocre when ideal is a real possibility.
Natural Pollutants
Lastly, some water is just naturally better than others.
While humans in antiquity often took water from surface springs and rivers, they did not necessary drill wells at the depths which are common today.
Thus even well water can contain natural substances that are unfit for ideal drinking water.
Usually, this means:
Naturally occuring pollutants like arsenic
Metals like too much iron or copper
“Hard water” with too much calcium or other minerals (“dissolved solids”)
These things can throw off our mineral levels, or otherwise mess with the delicate balance of electrolytes that we require to function properly.
What to do about it
We will now discuss different methods for acquiring clean water.
They each have different costs, maintenance requirements, and performance that you should take into account.
There is a lot of fear-mongering in the water space, usually for the sake of getting people to buy stuff. While clean water is important, you don’t need to spend $10k on a filter.
As with everything health related, most of the impact will be seen from the simplest changes. Spend all you want, but know that each dollar spent results in proportionally smaller results.
A quick note on the below: this is the result of my years of wading through the water BS. It’s possible I missed some things, but at the same time, I ommitted many things because they are not worth your time. Suffice to say, if it’s not on this list, I wouldn’t waste the time looking into it.
1. Spring/mineral water
Mineral water usually comes from pristine sources free of both accidental and purposeful pollutants. Some may have too many dissolved minerals, and for that reason may not be ideal to drink constantly, but they are easily your best bet when traveling and access to good water is uncertain, or if your living situation precludes you from buying a bigger, permanent filter.
Perhaps their best selling point however is that they are 100% free of chlorine and fluoride, the latter of which is very difficult to remove.
There are a few ways to go about this:
Bottled water
Always buy glass bottled water. Still is ideal, as the addition of CO2 makes it too acidic.
Acqua Panna, Mountain Valley, and Saratoga Springs are good brands that are both still and bottled in glass.
Water Delivery
This is what I personally use in my current apartment.
Fed up with the waste and cost of bottles, I discovered Mountain Valley will deliver (and take back) huge 5-gallon glass jugs.
They are quite a sight to behold, and with the addition of a stainless steel dispenser, this is about as convenient as spring water can get.
Finding a spring
If you prefer to source your spring water directly, you can pick up a few giant glass jugs or stainless steel tanks and find a spring near you here.
This is about as close to the source as you’re ever going to get.
2. Berkey filters
Many people are familiar with the Berkey line of filters (or similar gravity filters).
While these devices are great at what they are designed to do, it’s important to understand that they are not designed to produce ideal drinking water 100% free of all pesticides with fully balanced minerals and acidity.
Instead, Berkey is good at making toxic water safe.
It’s a great device if you live in the wilderness and are filtering river water, or are traveling to third world countries and want to avoid cholera.
It will filter out dirt, poop, iron, bacteria, mold, and even chlorine like a charm. It doesn’t use pressure or electricity, so it’s ideal for disaster scenarios when running water is not available.
But it’s not the best at filtering out fluoride or dissolved solids.
There is a fluoride attachment which is pretty good, but not great. So if you live on city water with fluoride added, this wouldn’t be my ideal choice, but it’s still a great option with the fluoride attachment.
And given the low-maintenance and price point, it is surely a massive improvement for many people compared to plain tap water, and a good place to start with filtering your own water.
3. Under-sink filters
Under-sink filters are the next evolution beyond Berkey for in-home water filtration.
They use, Reverse osmosis, which is the only way to truly remove everything you don’t want from water.
Fluoride, chlorine, dissolved solids, heavy metals, even acidity (which nothing else filters out) can be removed with modern RO systems.
Their biggest downsides are easily the cost, complexity, and maintenance. But most people agree that they produce the best water possible.
Importanly, because they remove so many naturally beneficial things from water, it is imperative that you remineralize water filtered with an RO system.
I personally like these mineral drops, but there are many such products out there.
Cheap RO units
These under sink units are commonly available on amazon for a pretty low price.
Installation can be tricky, and output is a little slow, but they will get the job done (mostly).
They often don’t have some of the fancier filter stages (like acidity removal), but they are much better than nothing.
Make sure to add a permeate pump if your system doesn’t come with one.
It’s not that hard to figure out, but if you are not mechanically handy and would rather just spend the money, buy one of the other options.
Pristine Hyrdo
Often considered the cadillac of under-sink RO filters, this system has everything.
Fluoride, dissolved solids, pharmaceuticals, and even acidity are vanquished through the 7 stages of filtration.
It even adds a remineralization step.
However, at the price of $2,000, it’s a bit of an investment.
Mito-life
Until recently, Pristine Hydro was top of the line.
But recently my friend Matt Blackburn has come out with a filter that does everything that Pristine Hydro does; but is easier to install and maintain, is $500 cheaper, and is completely made in the US.
I haven’t purchased it yet because I don’t have room in my apartment, but when I move this is the filter that I’ll install.
You can find it here, and the code “tanman” should save you a few hundred bucks.
4. Other options
There are a few options that I don’t include in the above because they aren’t ideal or might not be available to everyone.
These include:
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