Why Water Treatment is Vital to Life

Almost four million people die from a lack of clean water and water related illnesses annually, including infants and children, the majority of them in underdeveloped countries. Could you imagine this happening in America to you or your children? We're lucky. because we have some of the cleanest water in the world and our children are not dying because they took a drink of tap water filled with pathogens such as E Coli, which is responsible for killing two million people a year.

Water treatment is the key to creating clean water though, not luck. Our country is lucky in the sense that our government has recognized the need for water treatment and the EPA regulates our water supply to keep it safe and healthy for human consumption.

But you don't have to be in a third world country to come into contact with water borne illness. A small town in Canada found E Coli in their town water supply in the late 1990's that caused thousands to develop bloody diarrhea and killed seven people. This should drive the point home that we cannot take clean water for granted.
Tainted water doesn't always look or taste off. Sometimes water that is safe may look off or smell bad but not be unsafe to drink.

Of course you probably don't want to drink your tap water if it smells bad or tastes like chemicals, but there is a solution beyond a lifetime of bottled water and leaving that carbon footprint behind in the landfills. Start by learning about your local water treatment system and how it works to gain a better understanding. Most water treatment systems involve multiple steps to ensure your community water supply is safe. The first step is to add chemicals to the water that create a negative charge and force the derby to cling together and sink. Once the "floc" has sunk the water that remains on the top undergoes multiple filtration processes and finally is treated with chlorine to kill off any remaining parasites. This can leave your water with bleach like smell and make you feel like you're drinking pool water.

Every city treatment plant uses the same water treatment process but not every city supply of water tastes or smells the same because the process varies in finite details from one plant to the next. You also have to take into consideration that water has to travel through your home's piping to reach you and if your pipes are old they may be leaching chemicals into your water supply at the source and making your water taste funny.

You can do several things if you are concerned about your drinking water, including having it tested to make sure it's safe and having your pipes examined to ensure they are up to code. if the problem is your water, you may want to consider installing a home filter system to further purify your water supply at the source and improve the taste of your water.