The Danger About Drugs in Our Drinking Water
I was enraged after reading about this.According to an article in the ONearth Online Literary Journal, traces of eighty two different contaminants were found in surface water all across the country. Different types of prescription drugs such as hormones, narcotics, and high blood pressure medication were found as well as fertilizers and other chemicals. These tests were conducted using highly sensitive testing equipment.
This was rather alarming to me so I decided to do some more research about the chemicals that may be in the water we drink, cook, and shower in every day. My findings led me to believe we need to seriously consider water filtration systems for our homes to protect us from the health hazards these chemicals could possibly cause. We should also think about the harm we are doing to the environment as a whole.
The documented research on the net points to the free-flowing of pharmaceuticals, chemicals, pesticides and other contaminates points to questions that we must answer. Questions such as, what environmental impacts will this have today and in the future?
They have already found mutations in frogs and fish that live in our waters. These creatures that live in and around our waters are indicators of how safe our water is and what it can do to harm us. Not only do we drink this water, but we also consume the fish and plant life that has absorbed whatever the water contains.
We have used many of these chemicals and prescriptions for a lot of years, so why are we just hearing about it now? Simple because in earlier days they did not have the technology they have today to detect most of these toxins. Groups from Europe, the United States, and university students were involved in making the media and certain officials aware of this issue.
The chemicals found in low levels include hormones, estrogens, birth control, antibiotics, mood stabilizers, calcium blockers, and a host of other pharmaceuticals, pain killers, and over the counter medications.
While some of these are absorbed by our body and metabolized, a large portion of them get flushed right into our municipal water supply as feces and urine or unused medications that are flushed down the toilet. The contaminates are not limited to just these, other contaminate such as heavy metals, mercury, arsenic, PCB’s, DDT, and DES also make the list as well as 100′s of new ones each year.
The enraging part is that, although the technology exists to remove all of them, the funding and the desire to by the water treatments plants does not. So, even though the water we dispose of down our drains is treated, solids are filtered out, and even more chemicals are put into it to disinfect it, the original chemicals and drugs from the original water are not removed, nor are the disinfectants used to keep disease and other bacterial contaminates, still thriving in the water, at bay.
The water then comes back to our homes for us to use or is bottled and sold to us will little else done to purify it. Some is sent back into the environment to our wells, rivers and streams.
You can do something too protect yourself from these dangerous contaminates. You need to use other ways of disposing of unused medicines and get a system to filter these toxins out of the water you drink and use in your home.
There are many good water filtration systems available that will take out at least ninety nine percent of the impurities in your water. You can have one installed for the whole house or purchase them individually for your faucets and anywhere you want them.
The water filtration systems recommended that remove the most contaminate include reverse osmosis, nano-filtration, activated carbon, and home distillation followed by membrane filters. However, to be effective, the filters on these must be installed properly and replaced according to the manufacturers directions. All too often the filters are installed improperly or used past their lifespan, which renders them ineffective.
You need to have your water tested at a testing facility or buy your own test kit to use at home. You should test your water at regular intervals to confirm that your filter is working properly.
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