USA Water Filter Blog

Are you feeling a little too full for last year’s bikini? The answer could be in the water, rather, the plastic bottled water, laden with BPAs, or bisphenol-A.

BPAs are a nasty chemical resin used to coat the inside of cans and as a component of hard clear plastic bottles. BPAs are linked to obesity, cancer and even, gender-bending.

BPAs were created to prevent spoilage. They leach their way off the inside lining of cans and plastic bottles. They enter the food and beverages they protect, from beer to beans. Leaching occurs faster, and in greater amounts, when heat is involved, like a water bottle left in the sun.

There is evidence that BPAs are among those gender-bender chemicals. Gender-benders in BPAs mimic estrogen.

Breast cancer, reproductive problems, obesity, diabetes, developmental problems, and, as the term gender-bender suggests, an unusual overdevelopment of feminine hormones resulting in feminizing boys, were all linked to BPAs. Yet, they are approved by the FDA, who all the while, supports finding alternatives to replace BPAs.

http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/livinglifestyles/924225-224/bpas-from-containers-giving-pause-on-what.html

 

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“NYC Water is simply the best,” said Commissioner Cas Holloway. “It comes from picturesque watersheds upstate that we vigorously protect, and is distributed to New Yorkers through a complex and ingenious underground network that is the envy of the world. Our Water-On-the-Go fountains make the healthiest, most affordable and most environmentally-friendly drink available to New Yorkers for free in every borough throughout the summer. Last summer, we had more than 85,000 people stop by to grab a drink or fill up a bottle, and with more than three times as many fountains out six days every week this summer, we’ll easily surpass that mark. When you need to cool off this summer, do it with NYC Water.”

http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/news/free-water-stations-set-up-across-nyc-water-on-the-go-20110629-KC

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When did society officially give up on tap water? It seemed like overnight – many years ago – we became obsessed with bottled water.
No one told us that tap water was bad. It was just assumed that bottled water was better.
Now, the Blue W program, which promotes refilling reusable water bottles with tap water, is enlisting the help of local businesses and publicly-run centres to make it easier for thirsty travellers to wet their whistle.
The program has already  become a hit in Hamilton, London and Vancouver, and the region is backing the not-for-profit program and has provided funding to help promote it.
Along with reducing disposable water bottles, the program draws potential customers into participating businesses.
But the main reason that Blue W is a good idea is the fact that bottled water create a huge pollution problem. Bottled water produces up to 1.5 million tons of plastic waste per year. According to nonprofit group Food and Water Watch, that plastic requires up to 47 million gallons of oil per year to produce. And while the plastic used to bottle beverages is of high quality and in demand by recyclers, over 80 per cent of plastic bottles are simply thrown away. That alone makes Blue W a worthwhile project.

http://www.cambridgetimes.ca/opinion/editorial/article/1033061–give-up-need-for-bottled-water

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Water is a precious resource, essential for life and key to good health. It is also a tremendous bargain, since it flows freely – and at almost no cost – from taps throughout the region. People in many countries would envy our access to safe, dependable water.

Despite that, it has become acceptable to buy bottles of water transported here from somewhere else. Then we recycle the empties – or send them to the landfill – and buy full bottles.

It would be cheaper, easier and better for the environment if we simply used what is made available by the Capital Regional District water services people.

A bottle of water is a healthier choice than a bottle of sugared water – and for many people, that would be the choice. But it’s a poorer choice than other options, like refillable water bottles.

Victoria city council has decided to lead by example, banning the sale of bottled water at its facilities.

Councillors backed a motion by Coun. Marianne Alto that designates the city a “blue community,” one that supports publicly owned water supplies, bans bottled water at civic facilities and recognizes water as a basic human right.

http://www.timescolonist.com/news/Dumping+bottled+water/4979530/story.html

 

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There will be fewer small plastic bottles in Manitoba landfills, as the Provincial government has taken the step of banning the purchase of banning government departments from purchasing bottled water.

“We believe by taking this step we are leading by example and encouraging Manitobans to move away from using single-use bottled water,” Conservation Minister Bill Blaikie said in a recent release, “This also acknowledges the importance of Manitoba Sustainable Development Procurement Guidelines that clearly states purchases must be based on careful consideration of the good’s impact on the environment.”

Over the past five years, the Province has spent over $700,000 buying bottled water. But the new policy states government money cannot be used to buy single-use bottled water in plastic containers with less than one litre of water when tap water that is safe for drinking is “reasonably accessible.” Exceptions to the policy would be made when safe drinking water is not available, such as when forest firefighting crews in remote areas need water to drink.

http://www.globalwinnipeg.com/Government+offices+banned+from+buying+bottled+water/4907183/story.html

 

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There are already captivating and important books aplenty about water — from Peter Annin’s prescient 2006 “Great Lakes Water Wars” to National Geographic’s marvelous 2010 essay compilation, “Written in Water: Messages of Hope for Earth’s Most Precious Resource.”

But crafting a tightly written, thoroughly researched, almost encyclopedic book about the state of fresh water in the 21st century is a still worthy feat. Alex Prud’homme pulls it off nicely in fewer than 400 pages in “The Ripple Effect.”

The Brooklyn, N.Y., writer co-authored the well-received “My Life in France” with his great aunt Julia Child. Their chats about bottled water started Prud’homme on his treatise about this “deceptively plain substance.”

The first three parts cover water Quality (“America seems to be hydrologically blessed,” yet the Clean Water Act was violated half a million times from 2004-09), Drought (the “creeping disaster” threatening the Southwest and West) and Flood (levees protect 156 million Americans, 55 percent of the population, and yet 2006 was the first-ever attempt at a national inventory of levees).

http://www.cleveland.com/books/index.ssf/2011/06/the_ripple_effect_portrays_ble.html

 

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Water may be everywhere, but just how many drops can we drink? A new book from journalist Charles Fishman uncovers some of the secrets of our planet’s most precious resource, looking at the long-term ramifications of how we treat water. Recently, Patt Morrison spoke with Fishman about his new study, The Big Thirst: The Secret Life and Turbulent Future of Water. (Listen to the entire interview here.)

In The Big Thirst, Fishman takes on some of the mythologies and misunderstandings of water in this world. Did you know that each of us uses 250 gallons a day person just for electricity to run our households? But what we learn about bottled water is perhaps most distressing. As Fishman points out, the quality of your bottled water is likely less than what comes out of your tap.

“Tap water monitored much more closely than bottled water,” Fishman tells Patt Morrison, “The truth is that your tap water is as safe as or safer than your bottled water.” Nonetheless, Americans buy 29 billion single-serve bottles of water every year. Only around a quarter of those bottled get recycled. Some American towns, such as Concord, Massachusetts, have even banned the sale of bottled water.

http://www.scpr.org/blogs/environment/2011/06/27/secret-life-bottled-water-its-scarier-you-think/

 

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Minority parents are disproportionately more likely to give their children bottled water rather than water from the kitchen tap, a cross-sectional survey found.

Latino and African-American children were three times more likely to drink only bottled water than were non-Hispanic white kids (24% versus 8%, P<0.01), according to Marc H. Gorelick, MD, and colleagues from the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee.

The survey respondents cited a number of reasons for relying on the bottled product, including the belief that it’s safer than tap water (OR 2.44, 95% CI 1.44 to 4.22), the researchers reported online in the  Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.

The increasing use of bottled water is cause for alarm not only from an environmental perspective but also from a health point of view, with bacterial contamination and illness having been documented in several studies, they explained.

http://www.medpagetoday.com/Pediatrics/GeneralPediatrics/26880

 

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Water is a force of nature. When snow shuts down a city or rivers overflow their banks, we recognize the power of natural forces to overwhelm our human constructions. But most of the time, water is our friend.

The presence of water is the indispensable condition for life on planet Earth. We not only need water, we are water. More than half of the human body is made up of water, and we need to keep replenishing ourselves to stay alive.

Maintaining proper levels of water is crucial for our human communities, too. We must have sufficient water for our crops, not too little and not too much, as we find out every spring when local farmers wait until the ground has the right amount of moisture for planting corn and soybeans. We must have adequate drinking water, properly purified and cleaned. Less crucial for life itself, but now an essential ingredient in civilized society, is water for bathing, laundry, cleaning and all the other things we do at home that require water.

http://www.myjournalcourier.com/news/water-33818-human-supply.html

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“The Ripple Effect: The Fate of Fresh Water in the Twenty-first Century” (Scribner), by Alex Prud’homme: Even as motorists fret about the cost of gasoline, a rising chorus of jeremiads warns that shortages of freshwater, not oil, will trigger the most pressing challenges of the 21st century.

A spate of books and articles has laid out possible scenarios in which population growth, pollution and mismanagement will lead to a scarcity of water in some regions. The idea that large population centers such as Phoenix and Las Vegas could be rendered uninhabitable may no longer be the stuff of apocalyptic fiction.

Prud’homme, co-author with his great-aunt Julia Child of “My Life in France,” makes a thoughtful and compelling case that policymakers and average citizens should pay more attention to the precious but undervalued commodity that flows from their taps. Future wars, he suggests, may be fought over water.

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=13751970

 

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