7 Reasons Why You Need a Water Filtration System in Your Home
Access to safe and clean water is not only the key to a healthy life but also a fundamental human right. Today, the U.S. boasts one of the most reliable water supplies in the world, and 85-90 percent of people get their water from public water systems.
At the same time, your drinking water is often under threat. In 2015, a quarter of the national population (77 million people) used water systems that violated the Safe Drinking Water Act. Reports included a failure to report or even test contamination levels of substances like arsenic and nitrate.
Even though our water is safer than it has been historically, there are still threats, particularly as our water infrastructure ages.
Water filtration systems protect your water and family by removing toxins even when your supply is contaminated. Here are seven reasons you need a water filtration system.
1. It Removes Lead and Other Heavy Metals
If you think lead contamination is outside the realm of possibility for your water, remember that Flint, Michigan lost access to its clean water system in 2015. And Flint’s mayor reminded the world in 2019 that the water is still not safe to drink.
While a home filtration system won’t remove overwhelming levels of lead, it does remove the traces left behind after treatment.
Lead, arsenic, and other toxins aren’t just part of life. Scientists link them to health effects for adults and children.
2. Get Better Tasting Water
Does your water taste funny? Maybe it has a smell you don’t like. Either way, you spend money on bottled water – or avoid drinking water generally – to avoid the taste.
Your water doesn’t taste funny ‘because it just does.’ The difference between your tap water and the clean mountain spring taste isn’t the water itself. Instead, it’s often the water source or the infrastructure that brings water into your house.
The most common (but benign) causes of funky water are chlorine and bacteria. Water treatment in cities and townships includes the use of chlorine; after all, all water is recycled. And bacteria are a normal part of life. But an abundance of both is unpleasant, even if it’s not harmful.
You can filter out the elements that cause weird smells and tastes with a simple water filter.
3. Protect the Environment from Excess Plastic
If you currently buy bottled drinking water, then you have an opportunity to stop buying water and start enjoying what you get at home.
Out of the 50 billion plastic bottles purchased in the U.S. each year, only 38 percent get recycled. The rest ends up in landfills and our oceans; 8 million metric tons of plastic enter our oceans and threaten our marine life every single year.
4. Soften Your Hard Water
Do you have hard water that leaves lime stains on your shower, messes with your skin and hair, and doesn’t taste great?
Hard minerals turn our most crucial life source into a source of anxiety. While hard water is fine to drink, a water filter makes your water more bearable for you, your family, and everything in your home.
In addition to making your water taste and smell better, you save your appliances, fixtures, and pipes a whole lot of hassle. The minerals that cause hard water corrode all the metals it touches, leaving behind both lime and rust.
5. Save Money
Whether you buy it by the case or use a water cooler in your home, transforming your tap water into something drinkable will save you money.
Here’s the thing about bottled water. It may be $2 here and there, but bottled water costs 2,000 times more than tap water. And in 2017, Americans drank 13.7 billion gallons of it.
How did we get involved in such a con? The push for bottled water began in the 1970s and 80s despite its existence on the market since the nineteenth century.
Bottled water was the center of an intense marketing campaign that argued that Perrier water was “more quenching, more refreshing…” than water from the tap.
Then in 1986, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published a report that shocked America. Thirty-six million Americans were drinking water that contained high levels of lead. For millions of Americans, the transition to bottled water was all but complete.
Though cities and states rushed to fix the infrastructure problems, marketers from PepsiCo and Coca-Cola continued to play on the fear that tap water isn’t drinkable.
The bottom line: the idea that bottled water is healthier, safer, or even better tasting than what runs from your tap is a marketing tactic. And if you don’t like your water – you can change it with a water filtration system!
6. Protect Yourself from Backflow
Backflow occurs when the pipes that route your wastewater into the sewer system switch directions and send it back towards your house. It damages your drinking water and, of course, smells horrendous.
A filtration system protects your water form backflow to prevent corruption to the water you drink, cook with, and shower in.
Although backflow isn’t a common problem thanks to backflow prevention systems, it is severe, and incidences are increasing. One of the causes of backflow is waterlogged soil caused by heavy rain, which contributes to poor drainage. As our storms continue to drop more rain on us than before, backflow can become a bigger problem than it was previously.
7. Become More Self-Sufficient
When you can rely on a water filter like Filtap, you don’t need to worry about what your city is doing. By filtering your water, you stay protected even when pipes get old, or the city mismanages a project (such as in Flint).
Water is essential for human life. Why not take back control of your taps?
A Water Filtration System Can Work Wonders
Our water is now safer than it was at any point in history. But as our infrastructure ages, weather patterns change, and we learn more about what lives in our water supply, it’s a good idea to protect your taps and your family proactively.
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