The challenge of the 21st century
Tap water is more environmental than bottled water but is marred by bad taste and disinfection by-products. Using a purifying kettle will give healthy water all the time.
These kettles make great presents – you get both healthy water and hot water for your cuppa. In Australia they are available from PURITY.
An article in a web newsletter from Nutra ingredients USA cites Mintel as predicting a backlash against bottled water. Customers are demanding purity and simplicity they say. This strengthens our belief that Purity AB, the Swedish healthy technology company is on the right track!
We highly recommend People and Planet’s site about the state of water on the planet today. The site gives a good overview as well as providing a wealth of facts.
Did you know…
Follow the link here: people and planet
Today’s blog is in honour of World BLOG ACTION DAY for the environment.
What gets me is that we are spending more and more money on cleaning up water to ready it for drinking. Medicines, herbicides etc, are slipping though the purification plants (which themselves require huge amounts of chemicals and energy).
The reason we are spending more and more is because we are polluting more and more. In most places you cannot even drink rainwater. It would make much greater sense if no business or other organisation were allowed to emit either directly or as a consequence of the use of their products, anything that could compromise drinking water sources.
We are also seeing in parts of the world such a lack of water that severe restrictions are in place. Again, no business or other organisation should be allowed to use such quantities of water (or introduce technology that uses quantities of water) that the supply of drinking water is compromised.
A, on the face of it, simple task for governments to regulate, that would decrease health care costs and increase the supply of healthy workers. Ti would probably stimulate the development of cleantech at the same time that would be a good export earner.
There are a few other connections between water and the environment. Firstly, bottled water. The environmental burden that comes from transport, processing and the use of plastic containers has been well documented in other places.
Tap water has less environmental impact. However, because it needs disinfecting, large amounts of chlorine are used to kill bacteria in the distribution network. We have the choice between bottled water and its environmental burden, and piped water with its long term negative health impacts and sometimes outbreaks of bacterial contamination.
The main health problems from tapwater come from chlorine, trihalomethanes and aluminum.
Chlorine is a very efficient poison. In normal cases it kills all bacteria and virus in your tap water. In order to be on the safe side and in order to make the chlorine last until the end of the system, water utilities may sometimes add too much chlorine. That is not healthy.
Trihalomethanes: When chlorine breaks down bacteria, trihalomethanes, such as chloroform, trichloroethylene, bromoform, dibromochloromethane, and bromodichloromethane, result. The American authorities have set the limit of trihalomethanes to 100 micrograms per liter. In tap water, the amount of trihalomethanes is normally below 50 microgram per liter, but there are examples of tap water containing up to 1000 micrograms per liter. As long as the water purification plants continue to use chlorine in order to fight bacteria, there is going to be some trihalomethanes in the drinking water.
Aluminum: Scientific studies, in the USA, Guam, Norway and England, have shown a connection between an the amount of aluminum in drinking water and the number of neural disorders. One of these disorders is Alzheimer’s disease, a serious kind of senility which begins with loss of memory and confusion and ends with death. Aluminum is also suspected of increasing the number of “normal” senile dementia and Parkinson’s.
A new report from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) paints a dry, drought ridden future for Australia. Late in accepting climate change and even later in engaging in analysis of anthropogenic causes of climate change, Australia is being forced into facing its parched future.
The Australian newspaper, The Age, reports on the findings of the CSIRO. Read the full article here.
Tim Flannery, one of Australia’s top scientists and author of The Weather Makers: The History and Future Impact of Climate Change talks to Andi Hazelwood of Global Public Media about his suggested mitigations for climate change on the heels of the alarming report. (Audio, follow this link).
First came the Stern report, urging that climate change will seriously impact businesses across the globe. Now the reputable innovator in global finance,Lehman Brothers, offers their own analysis.
According to the report: “The business community….. seems fairly distributed along the belief spectrum. A recent study by YouGov for KPMG found that around 20% of respondents think that climate change is “not a very important issue” for their business. Moreover, “86% of business leaders interviewed do not have a strategy in place for responding to climate change.”
http://www.lehman.com/who/intcapital/pdf/TheBusinessOfClimateChangeII.pdf
Businesses should be good citizens – in fact we believe that consumners would prefer to hand over thier money to businesses if they thought that it would be an investment in their health or in sustainable development to benefit their offspring.
Concern for issues around water in Australia has led to unique cooperation between individuals, the science community and public authorities.
Australians clearly feel the urgency of addressing the water issue. It is heartening to see an initiative like this – where people come together effectively and convivially. The Watermark Australia initiative involved some 200 groups, each who contributed reports which illuminated the water issue from every angle thinkable.
This input resulted in the report OUR WATER MARK. Those of us outside Australia unable to purchase in the local bookstore can download the report as .pdf from the Water Mark web page.
This is important work. Both the way people came together and the thoroughness of the report should inspire other countries who will be going though their own challenges bringing pure drinking water to all citizens. Sooner or later.
Ms Mary Crooks, Executive Director, Victorian Women’s Trust and Project Manager of the Water Mark Australia project, spoke about her work at the latest Sustainable Cities Round Table/ Future Melbourne forum.See the video below
THE GREEN GUIDE has a great article on contaminants from plastic drinking vessels. Read the full article here.
Especially important is not to reuse single serving containers -the porous plastic harbours bacteria!
Global Public Media are featuring a series of interviews with ordinary people affected by the water shortages.
Recommended – an insight into how it is affecting peoples everyday lives.
