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Laurel Street Store Opening!
August 26th, 2008watermatters will open its new store in early September at 2539 Laurel St in Vancouver, located one block east of Oak St between West Broadway and 10th Ave. We look ... More »
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Bottled Water Isn’t Cool
Tuesday, March 4th, 2008Why on Earth is anyone still drinking water bottled in plastic?
Not only is it a potential health hazard and more expensive than gasoline, consuming water from plastic water bottles contributes to global warming, environmental pollution and the rampant privatization of water. David Suzuki has been warning us of the ecological damage of bottled water for years. With green practices becoming trendy, consuming bottled water is losing its glamour and quickly becoming a social taboo.
7 Compelling Reasons to Stop Drinking Bottled Water
#1 It’s Making Us Sick – Plastics Are Toxic
Polyethylene terephthalate (PET #1 plastic) is used for single serve plastic water bottles.
This type of water bottle has been approved for one-time use only. It has become common practice for many people to unknowingly re-use these plastic bottles. Studies show that bacteria easily breeds in PET plastic bottles when re-used and that re-use may cause DEHA, a carcinogen, to migrate from the plastic into water contained in the bottle. A new 2006 study revealed that significant levels of antimony, a toxic chemical, leaches into water sold in PET plastic bottles. Learn moreBisphenal-A is a toxic compound found in polycarbonate (#7 plastic), the rigid, translucent, hard plastic used in Nalgene water bottles and many baby bottles. It is a hormone disruptor that mimics estrogen and is linked to early-onset puberty, declining sperm counts, obesity and the huge increase in breast and prostate cancer. Due to the alarming toxicity of this chemical, in March 2007 a billion-dollar class action suit was filed in Los Angeles against five leading manufacturers of baby bottles containing Bisphenal-A.
#2 It’s Expensive
The extortionate price of gas pales in comparison to bottled water. A litre (33.8 ounces) of tap water in Canada costs taxpayers an average of 0.0005 cents. A litre of bottled water sells between $0.50 and $6.00.That makes the markup on one litre of bottled water a whopping 1,000 – 12,000%
#3 It’s Under-Regulated
More than 1/4 of bottled water consumed by Canadians is simply filtered tap water. In Canada tap water has to meet 160 standards compared to less than half a dozen for bottled water. In Canada bottled water is considered a ‘food product’ and is regulated under the Federal Food and Drug Act. Bottled water production facilities are only inspected every 2 - 3 years whereas regular drinking water operators are subject to the Canadian Water Quality Guidelines and must test and report on a regular basis.
Contrary to its claims of purity, bottled water is not immune to contamination. A recent US study indicated that 1/3 of all brands tested contained arsenic and/or E.coli and that ¼ of all bottled water was simply tap water sold at a significant profit In March 2007, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency warned the public not to consume imported Jermuk Classic Brand Natural Sparkling Mineral Water because it contained excessive levels of arsenic. In 2004, Coca-Cola recalled its entire Dasani line of bottled water in the UK due to toxic compounds formed in the water during the disinfection process. Learn more
A two-year shelf life is considered acceptable for bottled water. There is no control over the change in the bottled water’s characteristics once it is bottled.
#4 It’s Polluting Our Planet
The pollution and energy consumption involved in the production, shipping and disposal of plastic bottles is staggering. “The production of one kilogram of PET plastic requires 17.5 kilograms of water and results in air pollution emissions of over half a dozen significant pollutants. In other words, the water required to create one plastic bottle is significantly more than that bottle will contain” says Rick Smith, Executive Director of Environmental Defence.
Plastics are the fastest growing form of municipal waste. They do not biodegrade. An estimated 88% of water bottles are not recycled. Our oceans, now littered with plastic, may be one of the most alarming of environmental concerns today. Most plastic floats near the sea surface where it is mistaken for food by birds and fishes. Through the global food chain, it is contaminating trillions upon trillions of ocean inhabitants and ultimately humans.
#5 Water Is Getting Scarce – Fast!
Severe drought is occurring in many regions around the globe with no sign of letting up. Meanwhile aquifers that can take hundreds of years to recharge have been depleted.
More than one billion people lack access to clean drinking water. Thirty-one countries face water scarcity and water sources are rapidly becoming polluted and depleted. By 2025, two-thirds of the world’s population will face water shortages. Learn more
Australia is experiencing its fifth consecutive year of drought. Permanent drought is predicted for the Southwestern U.S., much of which has been in severe drought since 2000. Seven American states and Mexico are competing for water from the already over-allocated Colorado River. China is also experiencing ongoing drought. 700 million Chinese lack reliable access to water suitable for human consumption. India is also deeply concerned about lack of water. Sections of Mexico City are sinking at a rate of 12 inches a year due to over-tapping aquifers that have been drained to supply the city’s population of 9 million with water.
Meanwhile ‘Big Water’ companies are buying access to and drying up aquifers that have traditionally supplied human populations, farms and ecosystems with water.
Current legislation in British Columbia allows companies (including non-Canadian companies) to extract up to 1,710,000 gallons of groundwater per day without a permit and ship it anywhere in the world providing it is in bottles less than 20 litres in size. BC communities, such as Valemont , are loosing their water to profiteering bottled water companies who can take our water with no accountablitity to the environment or local citizens! This is grossly incongruent with basic ethics, water shortages that are starting to occur within British Columbia and the urgent need to reduce carbon emissions around the globe.
#6 Privatizing Water Threatens a Human Right
Instead of working to help those without water, the world’s largest water corporations are seeking to privatize this precious resource, turning a public commons and a human right into a commodity. Learn more
Growing populations challenge aging water delivery systems that many local communities and governments cannot afford to update. ‘Big Water’ companies are moving in to take over public water systems in North America. They have plans to control 80% of the public water supply within the next few years. Paying grossly inflated prices for bottled water is intended to seduce us into accepting a transition from unlimited, affordable clean water for all to water becoming an expensive commodity owned and controlled by ‘Big Water’. We complain about gas prices. Why accept water prices that are even higher?
Disgracefully, Canada is the one country that has consistently voted against water as a human right at the World Water Forums in 2000, 2003 and 2006 and the 2002 UN Committee on Human Rights.
Meanwhile, more than 1/3 of the world’s population lives and dies without access to decent drinking water and sanitation.
Concerned groups, like the United Church of Canada, are taking a stand against bottled water on the moral grounds that water is a basic human right, not a commodity to be sold for profit.
#7 It’s No Longer Cool
Once a fashion trend, drinking bottled water will die in disgrace. Like the cigarette, once fashionable and now stigmatized, bottled water is on its way out. You know the story about the frog in the pot. Turn up the heat slowly and he won’t know he needs to get out. Don’t be caught in the heat. Your life depends on it.
Make the switch. Get out of the pot now. The new wave is health conscious and eco-friendly.
Say NO to bottled water.
So what can you do?
Simple.
• Use a non-plastic water bottle . Fill up at home.• Go back to the tap. Switch to a high quality point-of-use water treatment system designed for your local tap water.
• Educate yourself.
Watch these online movies:
“Power Play”Read these reports and articles:
Plastic: what do those numbers mean?
Trashing the Oceans
Bisphenol-A
Plastic toxins in bottled water
The Future of Water
Privatization of Water• Take action.
Protect BC ground water.
Ban Bisphenol A now!• Support these organizations:
Save Our Rivers
Wilderness Committee
Eco Justice Canada
David Suzuki Foundation
The Council of CanadiansSpread the word. Say NO to bottled water.
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Water Filtration vs Purification: What’s the difference?
Tuesday, October 9th, 2007In the established world of water treatment, producing ‘microbiologically safe’ water is considered to be of primary importance.
‘Microbiologically safe’ means water with no harmful bacteria, viruses or parasitic organisms like Cryptosporidium and Giardia.
For community water supplies this is usually achieved by the use of chlorine, sometimes in combination with ozone and ultraviolet light.
For smaller, residential treatment, it can be accomplished by distilling water, by reverse osmosis (a process that forces water through a membrane) or by using new breakthrough filtration technology that efficiently removes bacteria and viruses from the water supply.
The water that results (containing no harmful bacteria, viruses or microorganisms) is referred to as ‘purified water’, and the process that achieves this state is called ‘water purification’.
Purification doesn’t mean perfect.
The trouble is that, although the term ‘purification’ implies perfect water, in fact these ‘purifying’ techniques may do nothing to remove a host of other harmful substances including chlorine itself.
In Canada, regulations insist that a community’s water disinfection process (usually involving chlorine) must take precedence over concerns about other harmful chemicals.
The prevention of outbreaks of waterborne disease like cholera and typhoid are considered of primary importance, overriding concerns about exposure to toxic disinfectant by-products.
‘Microbiologically safe’ water may not be safe to drink!
There is growing evidence , however, that there are very serious, long term health and environmental consequences to the use of chlorinated water.
As a result, if your water is municipally treated, you don’t usually need protection from bacteria but from chlorine and its by-products, among other health hazards.
Therefore, you may need an appropriately configured water filter, not a water purifier.
Unlike water purifiers, most ‘water filters’ do not deliver ‘microbiologically safe’ water. They are designed to be used with water that is already ‘microbiologically safe’, usually chlorinated water delivered by the community water supply.
Multiple stages of filtration target different contaminants.
Water filters range in capability from merely making water taste and smell better to much more sophisticated and thorough filtration of specific contaminants.
A properly configured water filter can reduce harmful chemicals that typical disinfection and ‘purification’ processes may either introduce or leave in your water. Learn more about filters for Vancouver .
For this reason, good water filtration usually involves multiple stages targeting different contaminants with specialized filtration media.
New breakthrough filter technology offers bacteriological barrier.
People who have weakened immune systems (such as the elderly, cancer and HIV patients) may want the added security of a bacteriological barrier included in their water treatment system.
Exciting new filter technology now makes this possible, right at your tap, without using chemicals or electricity, and without the traditional problems of premature clogging.
This is an important breakthrough in residential water treatment. It gives you the option to effectively filter bacteria and viruses and to ‘purify’ your water without having to resort to wasteful, mineral-stripping and energy consuming processes like reverse osmosis and water distillation.
This same technology is also now available in a portable form for traveling and emergency purposes. Learn more.
If you choose a system that removes bacteria and viruses, just be sure it is also protecting you from all of the other contaminants in your water supply.
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What is KDF?
Tuesday, October 9th, 2007KDF is an alloy of copper and zinc that is used in most shower filters and some drinking water filters. It removes free chlorine from water by reversing the electrochemical process that originally produced the chlorine. Chlorine is created by separating chloride ions from sodium in a brine solution.
Because copper and zinc are dissimilar metals, a molecular tension is created between the two metals as water passes through the KDF media. This galvanic action produces a mild electrical charge enabling the chlorine to combine with a metal ion, in this case zinc. The result is the formation of soluble zinc chloride which is washed out of the filter and is harmless to humans. Free chlorine is extremely reactive and seeking to re-unite with another element. In the absence of an electrical charge it combines with organic matter.
An excess of turbidity in the incoming water can interfere with this galvanic action, lessening KDF’s ability to remove free chlorine. For this reason, the life of a KDF filter is more closely related to the particulate level of the water it filters rather than the number of gallons that pass through it.
KDF has bacteriostatic properties which means that it does not support the growth of bacteria. It is not capable of killing bacteria (bactericidal).
KDF does not remove organic contaminants such as pesticides, herbicides, or volatile organic compounds (VOCs) such as trihalomethanes. It can neutralize some heavy metals but not under conditions such as exist in a shower filter where there is insufficient media and a water flow rate that is too fast to provide adequate contact time.
KDF comes in granular and filament form.
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Drinking Water Filters – How do you choose?
Friday, September 28th, 2007A guide for residents of Greater Vancouver
You know bottled water isn’t the answer. So you’re either filtering your tap water, or you’re thinking about it. But how do you choose from the confusing deluge of water filters and treatment methods that are flooding the market these days?
Knowing what is and isn’t in your water is imperative
Have you ever wondered what exactly is in your tap water that needs to be filtered out?
Water filters are not like other appliances. A blender is a blender. But a water treatment system needs to be tailored to the water coming out of your tap. Why? Because every city, every water district has different water conditions.Chlorine, chloramines, fluoride, arsenic, radon, lead, trihalomethanes, haloacetic acids, herbicides, pesticides, gasoline additives, parasite cysts, pharmaceuticals, nitrates are just a few of the many hundreds of contaminants found in North American water distribution systems.
Which of these are in your water?
And what are the consequences of drinking them day after day and year after year?
Consider yourself fortunate if you live in Greater Vancouver, as your water contains only a few of these noxious contaminants – but which ones?
An accurate answer to this question gives you the key to making a safe and informed choice for a drinking water system that can treat your water effectively.
Where does your water come from?
Drinking water for Greater Vancouver* comes from wilderness watersheds in the North Shore mountains and is captured in the Capilano, Seymour and Coquitlam reservoirs.
Except for wildlife, access to these watersheds is highly restricted protecting our source water from contamination by human activity.
Birds and animals that live in the watershed areas can transfer parasite cysts called Cryptosporidium and Giardia into the source
water. Though not usually fatal, these cysts can cause illness.Although chlorine is introduced to the water as a disinfectant at the water treatment plant, it is not very effective at killing Cryptosporidium cysts.
The consequences of using chlorine
Chlorine (and ozone at Coquitlam) is the disinfectant used in our water. It ensures that drinking water is microbiologically ‘safe’. That means no harmful bacteria and no viruses.
However, the use of chlorine (itself a poison), especially with surface water rich in organic matter like ours, results in the formation of highly toxic chlorine by-products that are clearly linked to cancer, miscarriage and negative effects for pregnancy. Recent studies indicate that damage occurs at lower levels of exposure than considered ‘safe’ by current drinking water standards. Learn more.
Health hazards in Vancouver’s water
Tap water in the Greater Vancouver area may contain the following potential health hazards:
- Chlorine
a biological poison
- Trihalomethanes (THMs) and Haloacetic Acids (HAAs)
chlorination by-products known to cause cancer and birth defects. - Cryptosporidium and Giardia
parasite cysts cause intestinal and immune system disorders. - Lead
(especially in homes built prior to 1989)
not found in the water supply itself but introduced into water from pipe fittings and plumbing fixtures containing lead.
Bottled water isn’t the answer
Despite its tremendous popularity in recent years, bottled water is often just municipal tap water. Under regulated and exorbitantly over priced, it is toxic to the environment and often to human health. Learn more.
The basic requirement for safe water
You now know the basic requirement for choosing effective water treatment if you live in Greater Vancouver: select a system that is capable of protecting you from chlorine, cryptosporidium, giardia, THMs, and lead.
It should have the capacity to do so for a reasonable length of time, calculated by the number of gallons of water that can pass
through it before loosing effectiveness for filtering each particular contaminant.When you think about it, these points are so obvious, but rarely addressed in the world of buying and selling water filters.
Most water treatment systems don’t match local conditions
There is a confusing array of water filters and water treatment systems competing for your attention. These products are made and shipped here from all over the world.
Do the manufacturers and vendors of those systems know about the unique characteristics of your local water supply? Unlikely.
Guidelines for choosing your water treatment system
Every type of water filter or purifier has strengths and weaknesses. Here are some important tips on choosing a water treatment
system that will ensure your protection.Tip #1
Choose a water treatment system capable of reducing hazards specific to Greater Vancouver’s water. Be certain the system can protect you from all know contaminants in your local water.
Tip#2
Find out the capacity of the system for each contaminant. How many gallons/litres can the filter handle before its capacity for that contaminant is exhausted? For example, capacity for Trihalomethanes (THMs) is usually exhausted long before the capacity for chlorine.
Tip #3
A multistage system with several different filters with the right characteristics can cover all the bases. This is because high quality filter cartridges are specialized. Each cartridge will perform a special function.
Tip #4
Avoid systems that are designed for contaminants not found in Vancouver’s water. For example, protection from fluoride is not necessary in Vancouver.
Tip #5
Make sure your water treatment system can filter particles one micron in size or smaller. The system should be able to do much more than just make your water taste better. It should do the filtering, not your kidneys.
Tip #6
Reverse Osmosis systems are not recommended for Greater Vancouver’s water conditions.
Tip #7
Be diligent about maintaining your system and replacing cartridges at recommended intervals. Fouled cartridges can introduce contaminants back into your water.
The moral of the story…
Don’t waste your money and your health on water treatment that doesn’t address Vancouver’s unique water conditions.
Make your water treatment system is an exact match to the contaminants coming out of your tap – no more, no less.
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*The Greater Vancouver Water District services Anmore, Bowen Island, Burnaby, Coquitlam, Delta, Langley (City), Langley (Township), Maple Ridge, New Westminster, North Vancouver (City), North Vancouver (District), Pitt Meadows, Port Coquitlam, Port Moody, Richmond, Surrey, Vancouver, West Vancouver.
- Chlorine
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Showering in Chemicals
Friday, September 7th, 2007A ten minute shower can expose you to more chlorine and toxic gases than drinking chlorinated water all day long.
Water studies indicate that you are exposed to 7-10 times more chlorine from showering than from drinking water. Chlorine and its chemical by-products turn into harmful volatile gases in a hot shower that penetrate lungs and skin. Chloroform gas and THMs (trihalomethanes) are the most commonly known names of some of these toxic compounds.
“the average daily intake (of chloroform gas) from a single daily 10-minute shower can exceed the intake (of chloroform gas) for all other exposure pathways” (such as drinking water).
from Trihalomethanes in Drinking Water, Federal-Provincial-Territorial Committee on Drinking Water, August 2004
Breast, colon and bladder cancer have all been linked to these chemicals in shower water which also aggravate asthma, bronchitis and eczema and other skin problems and respiratory disorders.
Protection from chlorine is easy with a good shower filter that can offer surprising cosmetic benefits as well as protecting your health. You’ve experienced the harsh effects of chlorine on your skin and hair after swimming in a chlorinated pool. Showering in filtered water allows skin and hair to retain moisture for a healthier look and feel.
Finding protection from chlorine’s by-products, such as trihalomethanes, is more challenging. The most commonly used shower filter media called KDF, although excellent against chlorine, does NOT reduce exposure to trihalomethanes (THMs).
watermatters recommends the Aquasana Shower Filter because, it uses a 2-stage filtration system designed to reduce exposure to trihalomethanes and chloroform gas as well as chlorine. In addition, it is an award-winning product that stands up well to Vancouver’s turbid water conditions.