People know very little about water despite it being essential for the life and survival of humans. It’s very rare to see people researching the content of the water they drink every day. Well, why bother paying attention to the taste and quality of tap water when you can buy a bottled one? The problem is that there’s no scientific evidence showing that bottled water is better in most cases.
In this article, you’ll learn why it’s important to carefully examine the source and content of your drinking water.
Most Common Tap Water Issues
Tap water should be safe. However, inadequate management if agricultural, industrial, and urban wastewater means that hundreds of millions of people around the world could be drinking chemically polluted water. No wonder why a lot of homeowners visit websites like filtap.com.au/melbourne-water-filters/ to install quality drinking water systems in their homes.
Contaminants or pollutants that may be present in your drinking water include:
- Sediments
Some contaminants or pollutants in tap water come from natural sources and may not be present in the tap water supply, such as the sediment that’s left over after sedimentation in groundwater. Sediments in tap water are known to contain trace amounts of some cancer-causing substances and other harmful substances.
- Chemicals
The types of pollutants that are most often found in tap water include arsenic, lead, chlorine, copper, benzene, and mercury. These chemicals have been proven to cause cancer. In some cases, these chemicals can be in their inorganic forms, but the majority are either in the organic form or in a combination of both. Most of the cancer-causing chemicals are found in water supplies, and a significant amount of the pollutants found in drinking water come from industrial wastes.
- Minerals
Most mineral content in drinking water is found naturally. However, minerals may be removed from water through several processes. Water treatment plants may add additional dissolved elements to the water to prevent diseases. However, it’s important to know what minerals can affect your health.
Iron and calcium are two of the most common forms of mineral in drinking water and, thus, shouldn’t be taken lightly. High iron and calcium levels in water are often caused by mineral in the ground and water table. When either of these two minerals is present at high concentrations in your drinking water, the water is classified as hard water. These minerals tend to come from rocks, such as limestone, which dissolve in the groundwater system when it’s disturbed.
In addition to minerals in the groundwater, rain, snow, dew, manganese, and calcium are also naturally present in the environment. Some people may find that water tastes or smells sweet when they drink it. This is because calcium is added to drinking water. Sometimes, manganese is also added, which might cause cancer.
- Pathogens
Water contaminated by pathogenic microorganisms can be very dangerous to health. Contaminated water may contain viruses, a parasitic worm, bacteria, and, sometimes, even parasites. Using culture-based techniques, H. pylori was first isolated from natural sources, like water. However, molecular techniques were successful in identifying this pathogen from drinking water supply systems and other natural water bodies. The fact is that these parasites often cause more serious diseases, such as typhoid fever, cholera, and hepatitis. Therefore, it’s very important to identify them as early as possible so that they don’t get a chance to multiply.
- Pesticides
You may have heard that pesticides can be present in your drinking water, and, yes, it’s actually true. A lot of the health problems that people experience today are caused by exposure to contaminants in water. This means that if you’re exposed to any type of harmful pesticide or herbicide chemical for a long enough period of time, it can be detrimental to your health, and you could end up with serious medical problems. Getting a water test can help you identify the pesticides present in your drinking water.
Conclusion
One thing people should know about water is that it can be contaminated by a number of toxins and contaminants, including a wide variety of different chemicals, including cancer-causing carcinogens.
There are different causes of water contamination. For example, drinking contaminated water can result from improper handling of sewage, as well as from the direct exposure to chemicals during industrial use, such as when manufacturing chemicals are used. Other common causes include improperly treated wastewater, as well as a number of other forms of water pollution, such as agricultural run-off, polluted runoff from landfills, and water pollution in the atmosphere.
Fortunately, you can remove most of the contaminants found in natural sediments in tap water by using a high-potency filtered drinking water system that removes all of the harmful substances. You can find a wide variety of this system on the market, including home filtration units.
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