Looking for a way to stop using bottled water? Would you like to do so with style? If so, then you need the Slacker Water Bottle!

We should all take steps to reduce the amount of plastic we consume and eliminating bottled water from our daily lives would certainly help us achieve that objective.

Manufactured from 18/8 food grade stainless steel, this 1.0 liter reusable water bottle has no liner to worry about and comes with a durable, BPA-free and phalate-free screw top that seals tightly in the bottle’s mouth to keep your portable water supply secure.

Also check out the slim, sleek design of the bottle which allows it to fit into a wide range of traditional water bottle holders.

Saving the best for last?

Whether at school, at the gym, just walking around town, or maybe even simply hanging out with friends, the clear message that you believe the world has too many Slackers in it will get through to even the most inattentive dimwits around you.

So… who do we think belongs on the list of slackers? We’ll start with anyone who refuse to recycle their plastics, metals, etc. Their desire not to at least make an effort to help this planet last longer (i.e. survive mankind’s abuse) speaks volumes about that person’s true slacker nature.

If enough people get the message and stop acting like shiftless and otherwise useless slackers when it comes to cutting down on bottled water we believe the world will become a much better place.

More Slacker merchandise?

Yes, it exists. Everything from sweatshirts, mouse pads, clocks, t-shirts, pajamas, and messenger bags to… Christmas stockings? Find the perfect slacker item for your favorite Slacker right here

Not a fan of chloramines in your drinking water? You now have a means of removing those pesky chloramines!

Chloramines? What are chloramines? Take a look at this earlier Water Testing Blog entry on Free Chlorine, Combined Chlorine and Total Chlorine and get a quick education on the topic!

Whether created as a byproduct of disinfection via free chlorine or the intended disinfectant in a water system, most people do NOT like the taste and odor of chloramines in their water.

Thankfully Pentek has come out with a product called the Pentek ChlorPlus 10 Chloramine Removal Water Filter Cartridge that fits in standard 10″ (x 2.5″) filter housings used in filter sytems produced by companies such as Pentek (obviously!), US Filter (recently acquired by Pentek!), Cuno, Filterite, Keystone, US Water, Water Resurces, Harmsco, and many other popular brands of water filtration systems. If your system uses a standard 10″ x 2.5″ housing, the Pentek ChlorPlus 10 ought to fit just fine!

Having said that last bit, please check the dimensions of your current filter and/or housing before ordering this product!

Looking for a 10″ replacement filter with NSF Certification? The Pentek ChlorPlus 10 uses a component tested certified to NSF Standard 42.

What does the Pentek ChlorPlus 10 remove/reduce? Using 1 micron carbon block technology this product (255416-43) should seriously reduce chloramine concentrations in drinking water and in doing so remove the (offensive) taste and odor associated with chlorine while also helping to pull out unwanted sediment, if present.

If you don’t like the idea of filling our landfills with plastic water bottles used to package bottled water, don’t want to install a drinking water filtration system in your kitchen, or have such bad source water that most drinking water filtration systems would require too much maintenance (a very real problem for some people!)… a device called the DewPointe AD6W Water Generator may have the drinking water solution you seek.

We’d heard about water generators that pull water right out of the air but until recently we had not found a whole lot of information worth relaying to our readers. Today, however, we’d like to take a few minutes to discuss some of the features of the DewPointe AD6W Water Generator, a CE, ETL, ISO-9000, WQA, ROHRS, and FDA certified atmospheric water system.

Scientists estimate that our planet’s atmosphere holds approximately 3.1 quadrillion gallons of water at any given moment. Additionally, this amount does not, as far as current scientific methods can tell, ever seem to change all that much.

What does that mean? In simple terms, we have a gigantic supply of fresh water all around us pretty much all the time — and devices such as the DewPointe AD6W Water Generator make it possible for the average home or business owner to extract water from the air and quickly make it suitable for human consumption.

About the size of a small office water cooler, the unit condenses moisture from the air and filters collected water using something called a Four Stage SLO FLO water filtration system with patented continual water recirculation filtration system. Below you will find a quick explanation of how the DewPointe Atmospheric Water Generator operates.

• An electrostatic air filter removes dust, pollen, mold and other airborne contaminants (solids) as air enters the unit.

• A cooling unit quickly chills the air to the dew point — the point at which water changes phases from a gas to a liquid — and a collection tray harvest the condensate.

• The water then passes through a sediment filter, pre-carbon block filtration and post-carbon block filtration.

• To render harmless any waterborne bacteria, microorganisms and/or bacteria, the AD6W uses a powerful 11-watt UV light source.

• The filtered water then gets routed to hot and cold water storage tanks.

Worried about having another appliance drawing power, adding to your utility bill, and possibly resulting in a large added expense? Well don’t. According to the device’s manufacturers, the unit will produce a gallon of pure drinking water at a cost of around 60 cents per gallon. That means you’ll spend quite a bit less money on bottled water products AND not have to deal with disposable water bottles ever again.

What if we don’t use all the water in the unit? Won’t it spoil?

Not according what we’ve read so far. The unit apparently contains a built-in (patented) refresh cycle that forces any water in the unit to get re-filtered every 24 hours.

How much water will the AD6W produce?

According to product literature, at 70 F and 60% relative humidity, the DewPointe will create more than 4 gallons of pure water each day.

At 85 F and 80% humidity, the Dewpointe will produce more than 9 gallons of purified drinking water each day.

In most areas the unit will produce an average between 2 and 5 gallons of clean drinking water a day.

Difficult to install or set up?

Not at all. Simply plug the unit into a standard 110 V electrical outlet and within 24 hours the DewPointe will have its reservoirs filled with pure drinking water.

How will this device affect the environment?

On this point we think the following quoted material does a pretty good job of describing the unit’s environmental footprint:

“The DewPointe is environmentally friendly and uses less energy to produce water than standard bottling or desalination processes and it eliminates plastic bottle waste. The DewPointe also reduces carbon emissions caused by the transportation and production of bottled and packaged water. It uses a completely renewable source of water without depleting natural resources or damaging the environment. ( source )

Oh, but you still want the convenience of having bottled water with you at all times… Not a problem! Several companies manufacture reusable water bottles (in a variety of shapes, colors, capacities, materials, etc.) that you can use over and over again without ever worrying about contributing to the billions of water bottles currently clogging our landfills.

About two months ago we posted an article (Four Bottle Water Filter Station — by 3M Filtrete) about an innovative idea that gives people the convenience of bottled water without the expense of having to purchase it all the time.

The Filtrete Water Station uses a recyclable filter to reduce levels of sediment and the taste and odor of chlorine from water… and then puts the filtered water into four reusable 16.9 ounce bottles.

Does this unit remove EVERY possible drinking water contaminant? No, but since some bottled water companies take tap water, filter it, bottle it, and then sell it… don’t you think you could do the same at home for a lot less money?

Granted many of those companies may use more sophisticated methods of water purification such as reverse osmosis, but not all of them.

Also, please don’t forget about the space in landfills you would not take up with all the disposable, empty water bottles you would no longer throw out.

“Oh, but I recycle my water bottles….”

Good for you! Too bad not ALL of the material that goes into the production and packaging of most bottled water can get recycled. The fact that the bottle and (sometimes) the caps can get recycled does NOT mean the plastic coated cardboard boxes used to ship the product will break down nicely in nature or get recycled.

And what about the fossil fuel used to cart all those bottles from the factory — and yes, we said factory. The image that a group of people sit around a remote location secretly bottling pure, safe and pristine drinking water is exactly that: an image — to the distribution center and from there to countless locations before it finally ends up in the cooler for you to grab as you head off to another meeting, to the gym or out for an afternoon of frantic Christmas shopping.?

Don’t get us wrong

We LOVE that (many) people have committed themselves to recycling the waste from various products they use on a daily basis. We just hope that more people will start bottling their own water at home instead of paying outrageous prices for filtered water that has an ecological footprint extending well beyond its trendy, recyclable container.

We have all heard the stories about people having date rape drugs slipped into their drinks while out at bars and nightclubs, but how many have heard of THIS? A male co-worker put his own…. ‘seed’…. into a female co-worker’s water bottle. Twice.

Just… Wow. What a flippin’ disgusting individual!

SANTA ANA, Calif. (KABC) — A 31-year-old Fullerton man was arrested on Tuesday for allegedly ejaculating twice into a co-worker’s water bottle.

Authorities said Michael Kevin Lallana was linked through DNA to the crimes.

Lallana allegedly entered the victim’s office and deposited his ejaculation into a water bottle that was on her desk in January. Police said the unsuspecting victim later drank the water, which made her feel sick, so she threw it away.

In April, investigators said Lallana did the same thing, but this time, the victim saved the water bottle and sent it to a private lab for testing. She then reported the results to the Orange Police Department.

Lallana is charged with two misdemeanor counts each of releasing an offensive material in a public place and assault, with sentencing allegations for committing a crime for sexual gratification.

If convicted, Lallana faces a maximum of three years in jail with mandatory sex offender registration. He is free on $500 bond and will be arraigned next month. ( source )

If this little bit of news does not make you want to take proper precautions to guard your water, whether in the bottle you leave on your desk at the office or as the drinking water that comes up from the aquifer and into your home, then perhaps nothing will.

Do you have control over the quality of the water in the aquifer supplying your well? Most likely not, but you always have the chance and opportunity to test the quality of water for unwanted contaminants. Periodic use of a well water test kit helps to ensure that no changes in the quality of your well water have taken place.

What sort of well water testing should well owners consider? At the very least we suggest they test for naturally occurring contaminants such as bacteria, nitrates/nitrates, heavy metals like mercury and lead, arsenic, etc.

Huh? Test for arsenic? Why? Is someone trying to poison us? Most likely not, but we have good reasons to suggest well owners test their water for arsenic. If you want to know why arsenic testing for well owners makes sense, take a look at Arsenic-Test-Kit.Com and ArsenicQuick.Com.

Getting back to the topic of well water testing, the United States Environmental Protection Agency as well as public health officials on State and Local levels urge private well owners to have their well water tested by a certified water testing laboratory annually. Qualified water testing labs like National Testing Laboratories typically provide reliable test results in under two weeks.

Oh, and before we forget, you paranoid folks out there may want to invest in a Cyanide in Water Test Kit… ‘cuz you never know. Maybe your neighbors really ARE out to get you!

Looking for a way to supply your office or home with safe, clean drinking water… but don’t want the hassle of changing bulky, heavy and otherwise cumbersome 5 gallon tanks all the time?

If so, then the Sharp Ultrafiltration Bottleless Water Cooler may solve your dilemma. It contains four replaceable filters that have an average lifespan of approximately 2 years and hooks up directly to the cold water line in your home or office.

Able to provide an office of thirty people with a continuous supply of safe, clean and thoroughly filter hot and cold water, this unit works well, looks good, and will NOT require you to sign any monthly or yearly service contracts with water delivery companies. Also keep in mind that monthly service contracts will run upwards of $50 per month and you will have change the heavy 5 gallon jugs each time one runs dry. Each jug weighs approximately 50 pounds. Not fun!

The Sharp Ultrafiltration Bottleless Water Cooler can provide freshly purified hot water for teas and other warm drinks on command… something many water coolers using bottles simply cannot do!

4 Stages of Water Filtration

In this unit drinking water travels through 4 separate water filters, each designed to remove specific contaminants. This intense amount of filtration produces crystal clear, fresh and tasty water on a continuous basis – with no bottles to buy!

• Stage 1 – A sediment filter which removes 99.99% of microbiological cysts, cryptosporidium, giardia, and ‘particles’ from the water.

• Stage 2 – A granulated activated carbon (GAC) cartridge effectively absorbs a wide variety of organic contaminants such as volatile organic compounds (VOCs), chemicals linked to cancer (such as THMs and benzene), pesticides (like atrazine and simazine), herbicides, PCBs, and chlorine (removes 99.9%).

  The activated carbon cartridge also reduces MTBEs and removes bad taste and odor from drinking water.

• Stage 3 – An UltraFiltration (UF) membrane removes synthetic organic compounds ranging in size from 0.0001 to 0.005 microns in size, bacteria, viruses, colloids, and waterborne parasites. This stage also removes and/or greatly reduces salts and water hardness.

• Stage 4 – A multi-stage filter which removes hundreds of other potentially harmful or aesthetically displeasing contaminants (if present in the water) and puts a final ‘polishing’ on the water.

Additional Details About This Water Cooler

Before shipping to a customer, each unit gets tested for a period of 72 hours, the unit as a whole carries a 1-year manufacturer’s warranty (excluding replaceable filter cartridges), the unit’s compressor carries a 3-year warranty, and the unit comes with a set of filter cartridges.

With regard to replacement costs for the filter cartridges, as of the date we posted this blog entry a full set of replacement cartridges, which ought to last 2 or more years, cost approximately $160 for a complete set of 4.

Bottled water back in the news… again. This time in Canada.

A Montreal laboratory is raising worries about bacteria in bottled water, noting they’ve found “revolting” levels that could put certain vulnerable people at risk.

Researchers from C-crest Laboratories in Montreal decided to randomly test bottled water for bacteria after a fellow employee complained of a foul taste from some bottled water and became ill.

They tested a handful of popular brands (which they did not name) and found that more than 70 per cent of the samples contained bacteria at levels that far exceed recommended limits in the U.S.

Some of the bacteria were at levels dozens of times higher than those permitted by the United States Pharmacopeia (USP).

“There were so many that at first, we couldn’t count. We had to dilute the samples,” Sonish Azam, one of the researchers in the study told CTV News.

…

The types of bacteria they found were heterotrophic, a category of bacteria that includes those that survive by consuming organic matter.

Regulatory bodies such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Health Canada have not set limits for the heterotrophic bacteria counts in bottled drinking water.

According to the USP, no more than 500 colony forming units (cfu) per milliliter of bacteria should be present in drinking water. The C-crest team found counts in some of samples at 100 times those levels. In comparison, the average count for different tap water samples was 170 cfu/mL.

…

The researchers stress that the bacteria they found “most likely” do not cause disease, but Azam says that’s still unclear. She suggests it’s possible that the bacteria they found could be pathogenic and pose a risk for vulnerable populations such as the elderly, pregnant women, infants, and immunocompromised patients.

“I cannot rule out that these organisms might be harmful, but I do not know,” Azam said. “But in microbiology there is a rule: guilty until proven innocent.”

…

Michel Lavelle, of the Canadian Bottled Water Association, calls the study “unnecessarily alarming.” He says commercial bottled water is not meant to be sterile, so the presence of bacteria in itself is not news.

“When you say the word bacteria it sounds like it is dangerous. But you eat bacteria on salad and fruits all day long. And these are the same bacteria found in the water,” he told CTV News.

He notes that the bacteria detected are non-coliform and non-pathogenic and don’t do any harm, which is why regulators haven’t set limits on these bacteria.

…

Still, Azam’s team concedes that while bottled water is not expected to be free from microorganisms, they were stunned at the high levels of bacteria they found. ( source )

So… Should Canadians rally at the Courthouse and demand that bottled water companies make restitution for distributing bacteria-laden product? Nah. We don’t think so.

We do, however, all agree that an independent group needs to take a closer look at the bottled water industry’s overall bacteria levels and set some guidelines defining acceptable and unacceptable bacteria levels — regardless of whether or not science currently deems a particular type harmless.

Remember: ‘Germs’ and ‘bugs’ that scientists originally thought harmless have killed plenty of people throughout history because we simply didn’t know any better… yet.

Testing for Potentially Harmful Bacteria

The following test kits can help you test well water, tap water, spring water, pool water and even bottled water for potentially harmful strands of bacteria.

Once upon a time, as in just a few years ago, the water division of Nestle boasted some of the largest sales numbers of any bottled water company in History — until opponents of bottled water began asking questions about claims made by bottled water companies that bottled water offered health benefits that tap water could not.

It also did not help that other folks started pointing out (and publicizing) the growing problem of what to do with the billions of empty water bottles winding up in landfills.

Needless to say Nestle’s sales plummeted and ever since then the company has struggled to regain marketshare by creating lower-priced, more environmentally conscious bottled water products such as its Pure Life product whose .5L container claims to use approximately 35% less plastic than an earlier .5L water bottle made by Nestle.

Nestle has not stopped there, though, it seems. In fact, they started an interesting experiment whose results they hope will change the public’s opinion of bottled water… and it involves trout.

You read that correctly. We said, “Trout.”

Nestle is testing the health of fish – trout, to be exact – in Cascade Locks, Oregon, in an effort to prove that municipal water can replace spring water in their Arrowhead brand. Key to the year-long test is showing that the Idaho Sockeye, an endangered species, can survive in hatcheries supplied from municipal wells.

Resistance from local environmentalists is so strong – Nestlé put the 1,700-gallon tank under lock and key and added security cameras. So far, three of the fish have died and will be autopsied. ( source )

We don’t know if we really have much to say after that. Nestle wants to know if municipal water from a well can sustain the health of trout and somehow if the water can keep the fish healthy for a year, this proves… What exactly?

Undoubtedly we missed the point of Nestle’s 1,700 gallon trout experiment, but regardless of the results their product will require bottles for packaging that will clutter landfills and deplete the planet’s dwindling resources.

While we applaud Nestle’s creativity in trying to revive bottled water’s image, we think they will fall short of the mark… and most people will not switch from their very economical refillable water bottles, sports bottles w/ built-in water filters, etc.

According to a recent press release from the IBWA (International Bottled Water Association — www.ibwa.org) dated 3/10/2010, a company called Zero Water Technologies, LLC has become the defendant in a lawsuit filed by the IBWA.

Alexandria, Virginia — On March 10, 2010, the International Bottled Water Association (IBWA) filed a lawsuit against Zero Water Technologies, LLC, the seller of at-home water filtration devices, for repeatedly engaging in false, misleading and unsubstantiated advertising designed to confuse consumers about its products and about how they compare to bottled water products. IBWA’s complaint, which was filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, notes that Zero Water has improperly disparaged the quality, safety, and cost effectiveness of bottled water in comparison with its own products and has made false and unsubstantiated claims about the capabilities of its products.

Zero Water claims that its products “remove 100% of detectable dissolved solids” and falsely suggests that the absence of all total dissolved solids (TDS) creates a healthier, cleaner, tastier water. In its lawsuit, IBWA points out that TDS is not an indicator of water quality or contamination, as Zero Water insinuates. Rather it is an innocuous collection of minerals commonly found in water. According to IBWA President Joe Doss, “Total Dissolved Solids mainly affect the taste of water and have not been shown to produce adverse physical health effects. In fact, the World Health Organization (WHO) has reported that certain concentrations of TDS may even have beneficial health effects.”

Contrary to their advertising claims, Zero Water filters do not remove all impurities or contaminants from water. Furthermore, Zero Water filters only remove certain organic contaminants for a short period of time before its low-capacity carbon filter is exhausted.

Zero Water’s ads make repeated references to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and FDA definitions for purified water that mislead the consuming public into thinking that Zero Water and its products have been tested, regulated, or approved by the FDA. However, Zero Water’s products are not regulated by the FDA and there is no evidence to suggest that Zero Water’s products have been tested to determine whether they “meet the FDA definition for purified bottled water” as stated in Zero Water’s ads. Rather, water filtration systems such as Zero Water’s are for the most part unregulated. This leaves consumers particularly vulnerable to claims like the ones made by Zero Water: unsubstantiated, false, or misleading statements about the safety, health benefits, and taste qualities of water treated by at-home water filtration systems.

In contrast to Zero Water’s claims, bottled water products sold by IBWA members and other bottled water companies are comprehensively regulated by the FDA to ensure their safety, quality, and proper labeling. Section 410 of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (“FDCA”) requires that the FDA bottled water regulations be at least as stringent and protective of the public health as the federal Environmental Protection Agency requirements for municipal drinking water. In addition, the FDA mandates that bottled water products comply with comprehensive requirements, including Standard of Identity regulations, which provide uniform definitions for various types of bottled water (such as spring, distilled, mineral, and purified water), and Standards of Quality, which limit the amount of certain substances that can be present in bottled water products. In particular, the FDA Standards of Quality for bottled water set maximum allowable levels for physical, chemical, microbiological, and radiological contaminants.

The cumulative effect of Zero Water’s misleading, false, and unsubstantiated claims in its advertisements is that consumers are deceived as to the quality and efficacy of Zero Water’s products, as well as the claimed superiority of Zero Water filtered water over bottled water products. Moreover, Zero Water misrepresents its products’ capabilities and makes misleading comparisons to purified bottled water products. As a result, IBWA members have been substantially harmed and this lawsuit was necessary to correct this untenable situation.

[Reporters seeking a copy of the full complaint should use the contact information below.]

Contact: TOM LAURIA
703-647-4609 office / 703-887-4056 cellphone (source )

Water Testing Blog’s Opinion

For years the bottled water industry has taken violent beatings from opponents, sometimes over some very good points and other times because public opinion had swayed away from it, but now someone has (allegedly) crossed the line and made some (allegedly) false claims about the bottled water industry — and IBWA now believes payback time has arrived.

We cannot say that we blame the IBWA one bit for filing the lawsuit. If a competitor in ANY industry makes (allegedly) false claims about another company’s products/services and causes that company to lose money, then naturally a lawsuit will follow.

It looks to us like Zero Water Technologies, LLC jumped on the bottled water bashing bandwagon, got caught up in the hype, took some liberties w/ the English Language and/or interpretation of scientific data, and now may have to pay dearly for their marketing indiscretions if the IBWA can make its case in Court.

No matter what side you have taken in the Battle Over Bottled Water, you have to agree that the facts and information destined to come out in Court as this lawsuit moves forward will give us all a great opportunity to learn some things we may not have known about the water filter industry AND the bottled water industry — with all combatants bound by Law to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth… or face perjury charges.

What Does This Mean for the Average Consumer?

Immediately we can expect to see a general ‘cleaning up’ of the language and claims made by water filter manufacturers and distributors in their advertisements. If things go well for the IBWA with this lawsuit, one can safely assume lawsuits against other companies will follow in short order if those companies fail to learn from Zero Water’s (alleged) mistakes.

Water Testing Blog does not expect that either industry will have to fold up shop as a result of this lawsuit, no matter which way it goes, but the less reputable companies in BOTH industries will either clean up their advertising practices or face prosecution. This means, hopefully, that consumers will have better, more accurate information available to them when deciding whether they wish to continue using bottled water or switch over to a water filtration system.

Best of Both Worlds?

What about some kind of bottled water cooler that actively filters the water as it gets dispensed… and doesn’t actually have bottles that need replacing? Sounded like an interesting idea to us so we researched the concept and found a number of office-style water coolers that come equipped with various types of water filtration systems including granulated activated carbon filters and reverse osmosis filters.

Bottleless 4-Stage Filtration  |  Bottleless 4-Stage Filtration incl. Reverse Osmosis

A person, if so inclined, can also add an Ultraviolet Water Sterilizer to bottleless water coolers. This technology reportedly kills and/or renders bacteria sterile using light of a very specific frequency and results in a 99.99% reduction of bacteria, virus, and protozoa. ( source )

Crystal Quest Ultraviolet Water Sterilizer

Additionally, we also found a Bacteria Test Kit for Water Coolers that may come in handy for offices and factories where cleaning the water cooler does rank as a high priority.

In the End…

Drinking water can get contaminated in so many ways that to count them all would take way longer than any person could reasonably spend — and not lose their mind. For that reason, and because YOUR health matters, take the time to test your tap and well water every once in a while.

You may find out you have great water and don’t need a filtration system or, on the other hand, you may discover that your water contains dangerous levels of arsenic or lead that could shorten your life.

As we always like to say, “It’s your water, your health… and your LIFE.“

Whether you have just celebrated the birth of a new baby or have already gone through a few sleepless nights with a young one that arrived a few months ago, you know you need to keep your baby safe from danger… so you have car seats, plugs for electrical outlets, gates by the stairway, childproof locks on the lower cabinets in the kitchen and bathroom, etc. You may have even stopped smoking and/or invested in a better air filters for your furnace and/or air filters for your air conditioning unit to make sure your baby has clean air to breathe at home.

Now think about this: The last time you made bottles for your little one, did you give any thought to the quality of the water you mixed in with that nutrient-rich, and usually very expensive, formula or cereal?

Even if you boiled the water before use, which would effectively kill off most microorganisms, contaminants such as heavy metals (i.e. lead and mercury) will remain in the water and actually become greater in concentration.

So if boiling the water first may not make the water safe, then what will?

If you take a stroll down through the baby section of your local Wal-Mart or Kmart you will see that you can buy purified ‘baby water’ in various bottle sizes… which means purchasing the products would a support the bottled water industry and many people do NOT want to do that.

With pretty much all other options exhausted, it looks as though point-of-use water filtration systems such as countertop, faucet, and undersink water filters may provide the most economical, convenient, and environmentally friendly solutions.

How Do Know If I Have Good/Bad Water?

We get emails asking that question in an email at least three or four times a week and we answer the same way each time: TEST YOUR WATER or HAVE YOUR WATER TESTED.

Another good place to start involves requesting a copy of your local water system’s most recent Consumer Confidence Report (CCR). If your local water system serves more than 100,000 customers the Federal Government requires that it make its CCR for the previous year available on a public web site by July 1st.

Keep in mind, though, that the CCR reports the quality of water as it exited the water treatment facility, not the quality of water as it came out of your tap. Only testing water at your tap will tell you the full story about the quality of your tap water.

For assistance with drinking water testing, take a look at the following links:

• EPA List of State Certification Officers for Drinking Water Laboratories
• National Testing Laboratories Test Kits
• SenSafe Water Test Kits
• WaterSafe Test Kits