Have you ever wondered how pure your tap water is?
Living in the United States, it’s easy to assume that any water straight out of the tap is “safe” for our bodies. It’s true that you typically don’t ever have to worry about getting a stomach bug from tap water in the U.S., like you might have to in other countries.
But if there are chemicals and heavy metals in your water that are toxic to your body, they can cause all kinds of health issues over the long-term! Chemicals and heavy metals in water have been linked to cancer, hormone disruption, reproductive issues, and many other serious issues.
It’s so important to educate yourself on what’s in your drinking water.
The contaminants in water of vary a lot from place to place. So you need to do research to find out what’s specifically in your water so you can protect yourself against it. The good news is, it’s really easy to find out what’s in your water!
This post will tell you how to find out what specific toxins might be in your water, and the risk they may pose. Plus, find out how to get a water filter that actually works for the specific contaminants in your water!
The Toxins, Chemicals, and Heavy Metals that Might Be in Your Drinking Water
1. Radiation, Including Radium
There are radioactive elements at levels that can increase the risk of cancer in the water of more than 170 million Americans, found in all 50 states. This is a health threat for everyone, and especially for pregnant women.
2. Heavy Metals, Including Lead
Lead is one of the heavy metals in water that you want to avoid at all costs. Lead poisoning, especially in children, can severely effect mental and physical development. Even though most utilities providers stopped using lead pipes decades ago, there are still at least 6 million American homes with lead water pipes.
Check with your water provider if you’re not certain your pipes aren’t lead! Public drinking water utilities have to disclose the results of their lead tests to their customers. You can also use a water filter that is certified to filter out lead.
3. Industrial Chemicals, Including Chromium-6
Chromium is another of the heavy metals in water that you definitely want to avoid! Chromium-6 is an industrial chemical made notorious by the film, Erin Brockovich. For people who drink water contaminated with chromium-6 for a lifetime, they are at increased risk for cancer. This chemical showed up in drinking water of over 250 million Americans, and in all 50 states.
4. Farming Chemicals and Animal Waste Toxins
If you live in farm country, you may be at risk of having toxins from pesticides, fertilizers, and animal waste in your water. Toxins from these products can increase the risk of birth defects and cancer!
Nitrate
Manure and fertilizers contain nitrate, and when it pollutes drinking water and can increase the risk of bladder cancer, as well as birth defects when it has been drunk by pregnant women.
Atrazine
This weed killer has been banned in Europe, but it’s still widely used in the U.S. When it seeps into drinking water, it disrupts hormones and can increase risk of cancer.
You can use the interactive map on this site to find out which of these farming chemicals have been found in drinking water near you.
5. Chemicals from Consumer Products, Including 1,4-Dioxane
Toxic chemicals used in products like laundry detergents and shampoos also end up in drinking water. 1,4-dioxane, a likely carcinogen, is one chemical found in these products that has been found in drinking water. It’s been found in drinking water serving almost 90 million Americans.
You can check out my guides to the Best Non-Toxic Cleaning Products and the Best Affordable & Natural Cosmetics Products to reduce the number of these chemicals you’re putting in, on, and around your body!
How to Find Out What’s In YOUR Water
The Environmental Working Group (EWG) has done water quality testing for almost 50,000 water utility systems nationwide, and makes their findings available on their website.
If you have a private well, you will probably need to get it tested to find out what’s in your water specifically.
On the EWG site you can search by your zip code to find out which specific contaminants were found in drinking water near you!
It will tell you the amount found in the utility near you, compared with the state and national averages. Then it will also tell you what the health guideline limit is, versus the legal limit.
This is scary: The legal limit for a given contaminant is usually a lot higher than the health guideline! That means the amount of contaminant can be legal, and still unsafe.
Find a Water Filter that Works!
Most water filters only describe what they do filter out of your water, but say nothing about the contaminants they don’t filter out.
Brita filters, for example, are really popular, but most of them only remove zinc and chlorine from water. Only one kind of Brita filter can actually remove lead (or many other contaminants) from your water, and it’s not one of the common Britas.
Plus, Brita and other pitcher filters don’t claim to filter out bacteria or viruses. In fact, they can be a breeding ground for harmful bacteria if you don’t change the filters on time. Some studies have shown that water that’s been filtered through a Brita could actually have 10,000 times more bacteria than unfiltered tap water!
EWG has an amazing resource that helps you find the perfect water filter for your specific needs!
You can search by cost, effectiveness, or you can find a filter that will effectively filter out a specific chemical or heavy metal that you know is in the water in your area.
The Truth About Bottled Water
You might think to yourself, why bother with filtering water when I can just buy it bottled?
That might be a fine solution for some people, if you’re picky about the bottled water you buy. But don’t think that just because water is bottled, that it’s automatically safe and uncontaminated.
A lot of bottled water is essentially processed tap water. EWG has tested bottled water for contaminants and found 38 contaminants in 10 popular brands.
Here’s another tip: Don’t reuse plastic water bottles that are intended for single-use. They can break down and release chemicals and bacteria into your water.
I highly recommend buying a reusable water bottle, but be careful with hard plastic water bottles, because they can leach BPA into your water – a hormone disruptor with some pretty serious health risks. Stainless steel water bottles are my preference.
The Healthy Human water bottle is my absolute favorite, because it has amazing insulation for hot or cold beverages for up to 24 hours, and your drink never touches plastic. Plus, it’s entirely leak-proof.
In addition to the dangers of contaminants in plastic water bottles, they also create an alarming amount of waste! Plastic in landfills will never fully degrade, and the microplastics that remain after degrading are toxic to the environment.
(Read my post to learn about 17 more easy ways to reduce plastic waste!)
8 comments
We used a Berkey for a long time. But recently, it didn’t seem like it was filtering out cyanobacteria. I could still taste it. So…….. now I’m not sure what to do and we are drinking endocrine-disrupting bottled water! Eek!
I’ve heard really good things about Berkey filters. But that definitely does not sound good if you could taste cyanobacteria! I’d love to hear about what filter you land on that works better for you. I’m doing my own research, too, to see what kind I want to save up for. Thanks for sharing your experience!
Thanks for sharing this article.I have a pitcher filter too. I always see to it that I change its filter. I think that by doing this, I can be sure that the water that I am drinking from the pitcher filter is clean and away from bacterias.
Thanks for sharing about your experience, Ralph!
I learned about toxins in our water about 13 years ago. Before I got a sink RO filter I would go to the water store and lug home jugs of water. That’s when I then learned about toxins in plastic and found the filter for our sink.
I’ve heard you should take extra minerals if you drink RO water . I’m hoping our current supplement routine is providing enough. That’s an area I should do more research on. Have you researched that?
Hi Stacy, thanks for sharing! I have not heard that about reverse osmosis water, but that’s a very interesting thought. Do let me know what you find if you do the research. I hope to do more research of my own on this in the future, so I’ll keep you posted as well!
This is so informative — and such a great post! I love that EWG has tested areas themselves as cities and counties are conveniently in charge of their own water quality testing. It’s so important to have a third party verifying this information. We have had really good results with purifying our water with a reverse osmosis system as well. Thank you so much for puting this information out there! 🙂
Thank you so much for your thoughtful comment, Amanda! I totally agree – it’s so helpful to have EWG’s test results giving us unbiased facts. Glad to hear you also have good results with a reverse osmosis system!