Things You Didn’t Know Can Contaminate Your Water
Despite the importance of water in our lives, many of us tend to disregard our ability to easily access water. It isn’t until we no longer have access to clean water that it becomes apparent how much we really need it. There are some surprising things that can easily contaminate your water—keep reading to learn more.
Medications
You’ve likely seen scenes in movies or TV shows wherein a character dumps medications down the toilet to dispose of them. However, disposing of any medication in this way is quite unsafe. These medications can infiltrate and contaminate the local water supply. If you want to dispose of medication properly, look for a local drug take-back program in your city.
Water Main Break
One of the biggest aspects of maintaining safe water starts with our pipes. When a water main breaks, this can result in several health risks. A break can leech thousands of gallons of water into the dirt and local structures. This can lead to damaged structures, risk of injury, and increased exposure to waterborne illnesses.
Fertilizers
Although we greatly appreciate our ability to go to our local farmer’s markets or grocery stores to enjoy fresh fruits and vegetables, this doesn’t come entirely without risks. Unfortunately, farmers sometimes use fertilizers to produce their fruits and vegetables; fertilizer can leak into local freshwater reservoirs, rivers, and lakes. You might not have known that fertilizer can contaminate your water, but you can ensure that you remove these chemicals from your home’s water by installing a reverse osmosis filter.
Microplastics
We’re all very aware at this point of the dangers of microplastics—they’re nearly everywhere, even in our own bodies. Plastic never destructs; it only degrades into smaller and smaller particles, down to mere nanometers. As such, plastic can easily work its way past most filters and into our drinking water. However, reverse osmosis can also remove most microplastics from our water in addition to harmful chemicals and heavy metals.
