[HN Gopher] U.S. imposes first-ever national drinking water limi...
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U.S. imposes first-ever national drinking water limits on PFAS
Author : geox
Score : 255 points
Date : 2024-04-10 09:31 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (apnews.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (apnews.com)
| defrost wrote:
| From the apnews.com link: PFAS is a broad
| family of chemical substances, and the new rule sets strict
| limits on two common types -- called PFOA and PFOS -- at 4 parts
| per trillion. Three other types that include GenEx
| Chemicals that are a major problem in North Carolina are limited
| to 10 parts per trillion. Water providers will have to test for
| these PFAS chemicals and tell the public when levels are too
| high. Combinations of some PFAS types will be limited, too.
|
| From a 2024 Guardian article:
|
| _Australia among hotspots for toxic 'forever chemicals', study
| of PFAS levels finds_ Australia's PFOA limit is
| 560 nanograms per litre, while PFOS and PFHxS is limited to
| 70n/gl. Canada limits all PFAS to 30 ng/l, and the US limits PFOS
| and PFOA to four ng/l. "Australia has much higher
| limits than the US, but the question is why," O'Carroll said.
| "Both health bodies would have different reasoning for that, and
| there's not a really strong consensus here."
|
| ~ https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/apr/09/austr...
|
| Study referenced ( _Nature Geoscience_ 08 April 2024):
|
| _Underestimated burden of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances in
| global surface waters and groundwaters_
|
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-024-01402-8
| harimau777 wrote:
| Does that mean that they just have to tell people that the
| levels are too high but don't have to do anything about it?
| Basically just "sorry, your drinking water isn't safe; oh
| well"?
| defrost wrote:
| > Does that mean
|
| If by "that" you refer to "Three other types that include
| GenEx Chemicals that are a major problem in North Carolina
| are limited to 10 parts per trillion. Water providers will
| have to test for these PFAS chemicals and tell the public
| when levels are too high."
|
| then "they" (the water providers that detect high levels of
| any of the three sub types that are not _strictly_ limited)
| will be obliged to advise customers.
|
| > Basically just "sorry, your drinking water isn't safe; oh
| well"?
|
| that the water supplied has levels of not strictly limited
| inclusion exceeding notification level, yes.
|
| Whether the customers are drinking that water and whether the
| level past notification is unsafe is unknown to myself.
|
| This interpretation is, of course, based on _my_ reading of
| _The Guardian_ reporting, the _actual_ obligations, precise
| chemical variations, toxicologies, etc, can _probably_ be
| found as an exercise for concerned readers by looking up the
| actual rulings and referenced papers.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| Wow, 4 ppt is much more aggressive than the previous limit.
|
| My well water was contaminated by Wolverine/3M to 90 ppt, we got
| a settlement because it was greater than 70 ppt. They installed
| GAC filters in my home to limit the contamination to 10 ppt. Here
| are the old limits:
|
| https://www.michigan.gov/pfasresponse/drinking-water/mcl
| wcunning wrote:
| The Gelman plume near Ann Arbor had wells way over that limit
| and this is probably going to affect the city water supply
| since the plume is getting close to the Huron River where Ann
| Arbor draws water from. That's part of why I moved towards
| Detroit when I bought instead of west of town. Now I should get
| my water tested in Oakland County, since I'm still on a well
| and who knows what's going on this close to I-696. Do you know
| if there's testing resources?
| infecto wrote:
| Beyond testing, I would recommend installing a reverse
| osmosis filter for your drinking water. I install RO filters
| for all my drinking water regardless if I am in the Bay Area
| (The Bay Area can have some pretty freaky hot zones of
| contamination), well, city water, other parts of the country.
| navi0 wrote:
| Any concerns about the nanoplastics that commercial RO
| filters appear to create [0]?
|
| [0] https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2300582121
| infecto wrote:
| Concerns yes but the better of two evils. I have not
| tested this consistently but I have leaned towards rather
| having the plastic contaminants from the RO system than
| whatever was upstream of the RO. It might be the wrong
| choice but after living the Bay Area I became too aware
| of how easy it is for contaminated water to show up from
| local hot spots.
|
| Edit: What I would add is I often ponder how much
| additional nanoplastics are getting added compared to
| what is being removed. I know some of the test suggest RO
| is adding more but I am not sure if it accounts for the
| complete life cycle in a bottling plant. For the near
| term I have just settled that nanoplastics are the lesser
| evil to me than PFAS and other chemicals within the
| water. It is scare mongering but I look at how that town
| in Oregon I believe had has wide spread PFAS
| contamination in ground water from the airport fire foam.
| xenadu02 wrote:
| Where in the Bay Area have you seen contamination?
|
| Lots of cities in Alameda, San Mateo, and Santa Clara
| counties get their water from San Francisco Public
| Utilities, which owns large water rights both in the Bay
| Area and large watersheds in the Sierra Nevadas such as
| Hetch Hetchy.
|
| SFPUC water is so clean it is not legally required to be
| filtered though it does go through ozone treatment to
| eliminate microbes. Much of the Hetch Hechy watershed,
| especially the upper Tuolumne, is bare granite so the water
| doesn't even pick up sediment or surface contaminates.
| SFPUC enforced removal of all lead water lines in the 1980s
| so there shouldn't be that risk (which was a real one given
| some buildings date from the 1800s in SF).
|
| In short if you live in SF or one of the cities that buys
| their water from SF you shouldn't need reverse osmosis or
| any other filtering.
| infecto wrote:
| Right, the source of the water is clean but the
| destinations are not. The Bay Area is dotted with a large
| number of super fund sites due to the historical
| chemical, semiconductor/circuit board industry. Even a
| larger number of sites that are not deemed superfund but
| are similar. All these electronic companies were more or
| less dumping their various solvents and de-greasers into
| the ground. Impacting both ground water and soil. Most of
| those chemicals penetrate both water pipes and in vapor
| form come up through the slab of the homes/offices built
| on top.
|
| Often as these business shutdown they built offices and
| homes on top of the property, for the ones that happened
| in the 70s there was no remediation until much later. For
| the ones that happened in the 90s-00s there was a level
| of remediation but I am still not trustworthy of it 1)
| lasting and 2) the developers doing the best work.
|
| So its not a "in short" story unless you are completely
| ignoring the large amounts of trichloroethylene
| contamination that is in still so much of the ground soil
| in the bay area. Sure if you live inside of SF proper you
| are probably fine in most of the residential areas as
| there was no manufacturing but areas like Bayview can be
| just as bad and you have the radioactive contamination on
| top of chemical. If you live anywhere in the south bay or
| east bay, you probably should at the very least get an
| idea of what was built near your office/home. Maybe test
| your water or just throw an RO on it. So many of these
| companies were dumping trichloroethylene and
| perchloroethylene in the south/east bay and we just built
| homes on top of them. They are indeed generally localized
| hot spots but when I realized how many were near me it
| opened my eyes. I remember years ago this was an issue at
| one of the google campus offices because it too had
| significant ground contamination.
|
| https://www.epa.gov/superfund-redevelopment/superfund-
| sites-... - Even the homes built in later years have had
| problems with vapors contamination even though it was
| built with prevention in mind. You can see the other
| super fund sites there.
|
| I cannot find the map now but there are even a larger
| number of DTSC cleanup projects from the bay area. Kind
| of surprising someone would ask where is the
| contamination when it literally is dotting the whole bay
| area.
| JackMorgan wrote:
| Maybe get a home still. It's basically just a big coffee pot
| that boils the water into a carafe. It takes about 3 hours to
| do gallon. Since it's all metal and glass there's no plastics
| in the output, unlike filters that often have a small plastic
| filter for the smallest particles that can end up introducing
| plastic in the output water.
| harimau777 wrote:
| Do you have any suggestions? The ones that I'm seeing when
| I search appear to be pretty involved.
| JackMorgan wrote:
| I'm using one of these
| https://www.h2olabs.com/p-54-white-baked-enamel-
| model-300-wa...
|
| I just fill it like a coffee maker at night and run it
| while I'm asleep. Fresh water in the morning, then I'll
| fill it again after breakfast and run it during the day.
| rkagerer wrote:
| Do you somehow remineralize the water? I thought drinking
| distilled water long term is bad for you?
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distilled_water#Drinking_di
| s...
| JackMorgan wrote:
| I feel comfortable getting all my calcium, magnesium, and
| iron through my daily amount of vegetables. I don't think
| I'm lacking in any of those that the trace amounts added
| to drinking water will help me.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| From your article:
|
| "Distillation removes all minerals from water. This
| results in demineralised water, which has not been proven
| to be healthier than drinking water. The World Health
| Organization investigated the health effects of
| demineralised water in 1982, and its experiments in
| humans found that demineralised water increased diuresis
| and the elimination of electrolytes, with decreased serum
| potassium concentration.[citation needed] Magnesium,
| calcium, and other nutrients in water can help to protect
| against nutritional deficiency. Recommendations for
| magnesium have been put at a minimum of 10 mg/L with
| 20-30 mg/L optimum; for calcium a 20 mg/L minimum and a
| 40-80 mg/L optimum, and a total water hardness (adding
| magnesium and calcium) of 2-4 mmol/L. At water hardness
| above 5 mmol/L, higher incidence of gallstones, kidney
| stones, urinary stones, arthrosis, and arthropathies have
| been observed.[citation needed] For fluoride the
| concentration recommended for dental health is 0.5-1.0
| mg/L, with a maximum guideline value of 1.5 mg/L to avoid
| dental fluorosis.[17]"
|
| I have gotten used to the taste of my Zerowater filter
| and so I got worried when I saw your comment. Maybe its
| better to drink the clean water and supplement with
| electrolytes and vitamins/minerals. That way you control
| all the parameters vs leaving it up to chance.
| zahma wrote:
| No need to panic. I also use a Zerowater filter. I'd be
| worried about drinking distilled water after exercising
| or in high heat because it can lead to hyponatremia --
| low blood sodium levels (see
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exercise-
| associated_hyponatrem...). Because your body is sweating,
| you're losing a lot of salt that your body needs.
| Drinking distilled water will pull even more solute out
| of those cells as the solute chases water (i.e. the cells
| are hypertonic) until its in steady state, but of course
| it needs to replenish what has been
|
| However, during normal daily activity and by eating,
| you're supplementing your body with enough salt (and
| other solutes) to compensate for what isn't in your
| distilled water.
|
| Now it's a totally different question whether we're
| getting PFAs out of our water with the Zerowater filters.
| That should rightfully incite some panic.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| >Now it's a totally different question whether we're
| getting PFAs out of our water with the Zerowater filters.
| That should rightfully incite some panic.
|
| They recently sent me an email claiming that they remove
| 95% of PFOA and PFOS
| jajko wrote:
| I would be worried only if on some obscure long term diet
| of minimal food and excessive amounts of such water.
| Imagine how much stuff you are getting with all your
| regular meals into your stomach, it mixes immediately all
| up and makes that rather pure water much less pure.
| huytersd wrote:
| Why so long for just a gallon. You can boil out a gallon of
| water in about 70 minutes on a regular home stove.
| calfuris wrote:
| Electric stoves get dedicated high-power circuits, these
| things plug into a regular wall socket. They just don't
| have the same power.
| Robelius wrote:
| If you don't want ti deal with doing the testing yourself,
| the EPA has a list of certified labs that can test your water
| for you. If you follow the link, you'll find Michigan's cert
| program and a list of contact info for those labs.
|
| I've never done it myself, so I don't have a sense of how
| expensive it would be.
|
| https://www.epa.gov/dwlabcert/contact-information-
| certificat...
| fierro wrote:
| where did you get testing done?
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| I got blood testing through the MIPHES study:
|
| https://www.michigan.gov/mdhhs/safety-injury-
| prev/environmen...
|
| And well water testing through the Michigan DEQ, county
| health department, performed by Rose and Westra GZA:
|
| https://www.accesskent.com/Health/PFAS/contact.htm
|
| Culligan Water installed and serviced our whole-home water
| filter system until a township-approved excavation contractor
| was able to connect us to municipal water, which was funded
| by a separate lawsuit against Wolverine/3M.
|
| No idea what (if any) the consequences were for the
| executives in the 70s and 80s who dumped chemical waste and
| leather scraps in a swamp behind a friend's farm upstream
| from my house, or their successors in the 90s who covered it
| up.
| igammarays wrote:
| Are there any easy at-home test kits to test for this and other
| toxins?
| smt88 wrote:
| Just skip the test and get a filter for your drinking/cooking
| water. They're not particularly expensive.
|
| I have one for my kitchen sink that removes PFAS.
| nozzlegear wrote:
| I'd still be very interested to know what might be in the
| local drinking water, so that I can educate other people in
| my town.
| smt88 wrote:
| In my own research, I found that home testing was not
| always great. If you wanted an accurate and broad test, you
| had to send samples out to a lab. It wasn't massively
| expensive ($50-100), but it was close enough to the cost of
| a filtration system that it's probably not worth it for an
| individual.
|
| If you want to do it for your town, that's great! Perhaps
| your local news station would be interested, too.
| apexalpha wrote:
| If you don't test how do you know the filter works?
| smt88 wrote:
| The filters are independently tested (officially by
| certification companies and unofficially by product
| reviewers).
|
| One of the brands, Berke, actually resisted independent
| testing and was removed from a lot of reviewers' lists of
| recommendations.
| discordance wrote:
| How about 0?
| incomingpain wrote:
| The reason is that industrial scale filtering to 0 is virtually
| impossible. This move by the Biden admin has been coming for
| 15-20 years. Multiple other presidents have wanted to do this
| but it's just not practical.
|
| This implies they have figured out a solution(ideal) or they
| are very worried about november.
| smt88 wrote:
| Municipal water utilities are saying it's too expensive to be
| feasible, so seemingly it's not about any technology
| breakthrough.
| _heimdall wrote:
| > "Reducing PFAS in our drinking water is the most cost effective
| way to reduce our exposure," said Scott Faber, a food and water
| expert at Environmental Working Group. "It's much more
| challenging to reduce other exposures such as PFAS in food or
| clothing or carpets."
|
| This says nothing of how impactful the different types of
| exposures may be, or if a partial reduction is meaningful when we
| still have other known exposures that we think are just too hard
| to deal with.
|
| Sunken costs can be a bitch, but I really don't get the argument
| that _removing_ exposures that we are adding into food, for
| example, can be hard. Just stop using PFAS chemicals, period. Its
| not hard or expensive, just stop using them and companies will
| stop manufacturing them.
|
| Removing PFAS chemicals that are already out there, like in our
| water supply, is the difficult and likely expensive change.
| Giving up any process or product that creates more PFAS
| contamination is the easy one, and would make a huge dent in the
| contamination problem as part of the issue is that we continue to
| add even more chemicals into the environment at a faster rate
| than nature can deal with.
| bagels wrote:
| Re: just stop using them and companies will stop manufacturing
| them
|
| Why can't we have the government we pay for with taxes help all
| of us with this? I don't know what products have/don't have
| PFAS in them, as it's disclosed almost nowhere.
|
| Why not just have them all banned and fined instead of me
| having to setup a laboratory to test every product I bring in
| to my house for lead, pfas, asbestos, radioactive isotopes,
| etc?
| _heimdall wrote:
| Because governments are terrible at actually implementing
| such rules, and the whole point of free (or somewhat free)
| markets is for us to have the power to decide for ourselves.
|
| With regards to labelling, I 100% agree companies should be
| making it clear what is in the stuff we buy. Again, though,
| that can be done by consumers if we actually care enough.
| Sticking with natural materials is a great start, whole foods
| instead of processed foods and wool or cotton instead of
| plastic/petroleum clothing, for example.
| JackMorgan wrote:
| I switched to a home water still, and the distilled water it
| produces is amazing. It tastes so silky, nothing like the gross
| distilled water from the store (probably because I store it in
| glass bottles only).
|
| I highly recommend it.
|
| After each batch, all the residue that remains in the boiling
| chamber is revolting. It smells absolutely vile. I can't believe
| I used to drink that.
|
| I went with this instead of a filter after finding out most
| filters use plastic mesh screens, that actually increase the
| amount of plastic in the output water.
| navi0 wrote:
| I've concluded that this is likely the only solution despite
| the energy required.
|
| Are you able to share any information about your setup for
| those who might be interested in replicating?
| JackMorgan wrote:
| This is the device I'm using.
| https://www.h2olabs.com/p-54-white-baked-enamel-
| model-300-wa...
|
| I don't do anything but drink the water as it comes out.
| poidos wrote:
| Do you have to remineralize it or add salts to it? If so, what
| do you add?
| JackMorgan wrote:
| No I don't, the studies I've seen indicate the missing
| magnesium, calcium, and sodium are pretty trace and I'm
| eating tons of vegetables, so I'm not worried about missing
| those.
| voisin wrote:
| What brand?
| nrml_amnt wrote:
| What does it smell like?
| chung8123 wrote:
| How does this compare to reverse osmosis?
| pvaldes wrote:
| (Some years into the future)
|
| "Obesity pandemic decreases mysteriously in US".
| Someone1234 wrote:
| The "Obesity pandemic" is almost directly attributable to
| increases in corn subsidies and processes to turn it into cheap
| sugar. Processed foods, which is the majority, have
| consistently removed more expensive fats/proteins and replaced
| them with less expensive sugar.
|
| Sugar has low satiation, so you can consume a lot of it before
| feeling full (unlike, again, fats/proteins). This was of course
| worsened by the anti-fat/pro-sugar movement in the 1990s (which
| is a whole topic itself).
|
| Unfortunately there is no mystery to obesity. We've being
| systematically poisoned by our own food supply. If they either
| removed the corn-subsidies OR added a corn-sugar tax to offset
| the subsidies, food prices would increase, but obesity would
| decrease.
|
| It isn't politically realistic though to make food taste less
| good (i.e. less sweet) and increase prices, nor is it
| politically realistic to remove corn subsidies or create sugar
| taxes. So we're stuck here for the foreseeable.
| pvaldes wrote:
| As we had discovered since Leptin research, things that
| seemed simple and dumb and claimed with loud firm voices were
| more complex and smart that it seemed in retrospective.
|
| Europe has not the same ratio of extreme obesity, while
| eating basically the same products, How would you explain
| that?
|
| Some cities in US have much more overweight people than other
| similar cities, both eat basically the same corn subsidized
| and distributed by the entire territory. why?
|
| It seems that low places down the river have more overweight
| people than high places up the river, why?
|
| > It isn't politically realistic though to make food taste
| less good (i.e. less sweet) and increase prices, nor is it
| politically realistic to remove corn subsidies or create
| sugar taxes.
|
| Other countries did it all the time. It was a more realistic
| goal for them (or they just didn't knew that it can't be done
| and did it anyway)?
| Someone1234 wrote:
| > Europe has not the same ratio of extreme obesity, while
| eating basically the same products, How would you explain
| that?
|
| They aren't the same products, since sugar is more
| expensive in Europe, they add less of it to the products.
| Add aggressive labeling laws on top of that and sugar taxes
| on top of that.
|
| You can directly corroborate population sugar consumption
| with population BMI. You can also track the increase in BMI
| against the cost of sugar (i.e. lower it goes, the higher
| BMI goes) from 1970 to today.
| pvaldes wrote:
| > since sugar is more expensive in Europe, they add less
| of it to the products
|
| I guarantee you that we can afford to spend 90 cents of
| Euro for 1 Kg of sugar.
|
| Everybody here with a normal income use as much sugar on
| the kitchen as they want, plus a lot of fructose also.
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| The effect is more on food manufacturers than on home
| kitchens. A few cents per item can have a significant
| effect on their profit margin.
| zug_zug wrote:
| Great news.
|
| > Roughly 16% of utilities found at least one of the two strictly
| limited PFAS chemicals at or above the new limits. These
| utilities serve tens of millions of people. The Biden
| administration, however, expects about 6-10% of water systems to
| exceed the new limits.
|
| Wow. Seems like a small but meaningful step toward better health,
| which seems like one of the best uses of technology.
|
| Curious if people on wells can get their water tested somehow.
| dc_ist wrote:
| Fully expect this iteration of SCOTUS to rule against the EPA
| reducesuffering wrote:
| "Tap water is perfectly fine" people threw a lot of shade at
| people who only drink bottled water, but both should be using
| Reverse Osmosis filtration right now. Think of it as verifying
| the response you got from the API is correct...
| wouldbecouldbe wrote:
| Yeah the plastic bottles are also not great:
| https://time.com/6553165/microplastics-in-bottled-water-stud...
|
| Just sad we made such a mess.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| There'll be no technology solution for this that scales
| globally for any means and usability
| _factor wrote:
| How about glass bottles and reusing them like we used to.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| Probably higher skill and cost throughout the full
| integration that there's no business/market incentive
| toward it and we can't rely on the state to check and
| curb every business toward radical ecological change
|
| It's easy to dream up rules and government mandates or
| budget items, which would be more directly interesting if
| we lived in an actual democracy (no matter what country
| on earth today) but rather we have to understand why
| state and business as we've enabled them to operate
| structurally would ever work toward those directives, and
| not just to an appeasingly greenwashed extent. And then
| think what other tools are available to us besides voting
| and waiting, given all that. Don't we all know devops
| here? Where's the structural analysis and systemically-
| impacting follow-up discussion? Instead people talk about
| the quality of individual masters and operators
| wouldbecouldbe wrote:
| Haha I guess we're in luck. There is a global water
| distribution system in place for free :).
|
| All we have to do is stop allowing industries to dump in
| our most important natural resource. How stupid can we be?
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| "Stop allowing" says a lot. An authority that dictates
| and enforces it? Sounds like something that loves to use
| its power to collude with business in every country with
| this society
| whyenot wrote:
| It really does depend on what your water source is and the
| pipes from there to your tap. For example, the Hetch Hetchy
| water that supplies San Francisco and some other parts of the
| Bay Area is very pure. Reverse osmosis is not going to remove
| much of anything. Davis water, or San Jose water, well, that's
| a little different.
|
| The other thing about RO water systems is that they are not
| very efficient. For every gallon of pure(-ish) water that a
| home system generates, it typically has to throw away 5 gallons
| of salty water.
| cheald wrote:
| RO systems vary by efficiency, but 1:5 seems way out of
| whack. My tankless system claims 2:1 output:waste, and while
| I haven't measured it directly, I'd say that's probably
| pretty close to right.
| whyenot wrote:
| "For example, a typical point-of-use RO system will
| generate five gallons or more of reject water for every
| gallon of permeate produced."
|
| https://www.epa.gov/watersense/point-use-reverse-osmosis-
| sys...
| reducesuffering wrote:
| This is outdated as most of the mfgs have gotten better
| at it. Mine is 1:1 drinking:waste and my monthly water
| consumption is barely affected as it's indiscernible in
| the noisy variation. First 4 links on Amazon I'm seeing
| 2:1, 2:1, 3:1, 3:1
| jon_richards wrote:
| I looked into this a while ago and didn't understand why
| the efficiency claims were so different, but here's a
| video of a RO system running
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2r_T7Bgi3hQ
| reducesuffering wrote:
| "San Francisco and some other parts of the Bay Area is very
| pure"
|
| https://www.ewg.org/tapwater/system.php?pws=CA3810011
|
| Contains Carbon Tetrachloride, Hexavalent Chromium (PG&E v.
| Erin Brockovich anyone?), Haloacetic acids, and
| Trihalomethanes, all carcinogens. All are reduced by reverse
| osmosis use.
|
| You say "not efficient" when it's more like an extra 1-2
| gallons waste, and yet the outcome is much cleaner water that
| makes up a large portion of your biology. I'd say that's a
| pretty efficient way to be healthier, especially when
| drinking water is a very tiny sliver of water consumption.
| The average person uses 3,000 gallons of water a month and
| you're sweating an extra 5 gallons for drinking?
| zdragnar wrote:
| That's an extra 5 gallons only if it is done at the point
| of consumption.
|
| To do it for all water- showers, washing dishes, laundry,
| etc- would require RO for all potable water for the city
| water supply.
|
| Depending on where in California you are, that much extra
| water consumption (since the waste will have an even higher
| concentration of harmful chemicals) isn't exactly an
| option.
| reducesuffering wrote:
| This isn't common or as much of a concern at all. I'm
| talking about drinking water for consumption. It's a $200
| expense, an extra 20 gallons of water a month at most
| (out of 3000).
| whyenot wrote:
| Water quality: see https://www.sfpuc.org/sites/default/file
| s/documents/SF_Regio...
|
| Efficiency: see https://www.epa.gov/watersense/point-use-
| reverse-osmosis-sys...
|
| _For example, a typical point-of-use RO system will
| generate five gallons or more of reject water for every
| gallon of permeate produced. Some inefficient units will
| generate up to 10 gallons of reject water for every gallon
| of permeate produced. In recent years, membrane technology
| has improved and some point-of-use RO systems have been
| designed to operate more efficiently, with some
| manufacturers advertising a 1:1 ratio of permeate to
| concentrate production, meaning only one gallon of reject
| water is generated for each gallon of treated water._
| perryh2 wrote:
| I've been using the Waterdrop G3 system in my kitchen and it's
| been great. https://www.amazon.com/Waterdrop-Reverse-
| Filtration-Reductio...
| ch4s3 wrote:
| That RO water needs to have at least some minerals added back
| to it, unless you're pretty confident about your calcium and
| magnesium intake.
| dham wrote:
| If you're taking Vitamin D and Vitamin K like you're supposed
| to, these are the last things you have to worry about.
| reducesuffering wrote:
| The papers I've read generally indicate the average drinking
| water consumption is roughly only about 4%-10% RDA calcium,
| magnesium, and potassium. Most people should already be
| supplementing magnesium anyway since it's deficient in half
| of developed countries populations.
| swatcoder wrote:
| It's all just kind of f'd anyway.
|
| The biological need for "water" is tuned to expect "water" to
| involve all sorts of trace minerals and compounds, some desired
| and some undesired, as well as some kind of stream of gut flora
| contributors and immune system challenges.
|
| Thinking of RO and other forms of heavily or industrially
| purified H20 as the same thing is a technologist's mistaken
| idealization, and to a cynical eye reads a lot more like
| ancient Hellenic ideas about simple essential fluids than
| anything either scientific or sustainable.
|
| It may be a necessary compromise because of modern
| contamination or because modern demand forces us to rely on
| increasingly worse supplies, but it's a long way from
| "verifying the response". It's more like an ugly last resort
| hack.
| JohnMakin wrote:
| Go drink unfiltered water out of a wilderness stream after a
| melt and tell me how it goes
| scottyah wrote:
| I've done it a few times, never got sick. I've known people
| to not be so lucky, but that's pretty rare. Sure does
| "taste" good, but I'm not sure how much of that is
| circumstance based.
| JohnMakin wrote:
| Sorry I was not meaning to be as snarky as that came off.
| I'm an avid backpacker and have been in situations where
| I had to drink unfiltered stream water - while I know
| it's possible to do so and not suffer ill effects, there
| are also a ton of super bad effects, and our bodies are
| far removed from the environment we evolved in 100k+
| years ago. I don't know the research on this but I'd
| wager our gut biome is much different than it was a
| million years ago as well.
| newZWhoDis wrote:
| Compete and utter nonsense. You'd need 100+ gal/day to get
| the trace mineral content of a multi vitamin.
|
| The rest is equally preposterous.
| semicolon_storm wrote:
| No paywall:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20240410092221/https://www.nytim...
| candiddevmike wrote:
| Without any curtailing of their usage, aren't we just shifting
| costs to taxpayers?
| Lammy wrote:
| > taxpayers
|
| Relevant: "How to Make Tap Water"
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvIky3B661s
| thomasahle wrote:
| How much are people currently spending on bottled water, that
| they could save if the tap water was safer?
| nox101 wrote:
| Is tap water unsafe?
| dylan604 wrote:
| Hi. Welcome to the conversation. The title of the article
| being discussed is "EPA Says 'Forever Chemicals' Must Be
| Removed from Tap Water (nytimes.com)"
| spacephysics wrote:
| I'd get an RO under sink filter that remineralizes the
| water and call it a day
|
| Even if the water treatment plant does everything right,
| the pipes from there to your house typically have
| contaminates as well
| kibwen wrote:
| This seems to frame it as though bottled water isn't
| ultimately just tap water.
| kccqzy wrote:
| The EPA is imposing a limit on PFAS in tap water. How do you
| infer that bottled water companies will start voluntarily to
| begin limiting PFAS in their bottled water without government
| action?
| sokoloff wrote:
| Depending on the study you care to believe, bottled water
| is 1/4 to 2/3rds of the time originally sourced from tap
| water.
| ip26 wrote:
| Pushing the cost upstream (e.g. as opposed to everyone
| installing water filters at home) does help with attribution
| and accountability. My local water authority has significantly
| more power than I do.
| sp332 wrote:
| Looks like most of the people saying it's too expensive are
| talking about filtering the stuff out of water at or near the
| point of use. What's the cost to reduce the amount of these
| chemicals getting into the water in the first place?
| dudus wrote:
| They are already in the water, and they are not going away,
| hence the name.
| NewJazz wrote:
| What's the cost of even identifying all the ways these
| chemicals are getting out, or what all these chemicals are?
|
| I heard recently that but and seed butters often have elevated
| amounts of this crap... One hypothesis floated was that
| machinery used in the processing of this food is being coated
| in the stuff.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| We know where a lot of it _came_ from. Emphasis because it 's
| an historical problem:
|
| Military and civil air fire-fighting foam.
|
| About a million tons of perfluoroalkyl was put into the
| environment between 1970 and 2000. It's very mobile, so it
| quickly got into groundwater and rivers.
|
| By comparison the leach from Teflon pans is probably a small
| percentage.
| NewJazz wrote:
| Oh I definitely agree that Teflon pans are low on the list
| of pollution sources. But firefighting foam doesn't explain
| wtf happened (is happening?) to Cape Fear.
| hunter2_ wrote:
| Food packaging is full of this stuff. Think about how a
| greasy sandwich or stick of butter is wrapped in a magic
| piece of paper that somehow doesn't get completely saturated
| with grease/sauce... that's PFAS.
| mjrpes wrote:
| They make PFAS free wax paper.
| choilive wrote:
| To the machinery example - the dies used to make pasta are
| teflon coated because that means you can push the dough
| through the dies faster. Likewise dental floss often has PFAS
| coatings to make it easier to slide between your teeth. This
| stuff is literally everywhere and cannot be avoided.
| hunter2_ wrote:
| For nonstick/waterproof/hydrophobic coatings to not slowly shed
| from whatever they're applied to and end up in the water,
| they'd need to not be applied in the first place. Not having
| them is cheaper than having them, but we'll be wet (which
| occasionally leads to hypothermia) and we'll need to revert
| back to pans seasoned the old fashioned way (less convenient,
| careful washing).
| beejiu wrote:
| > revert back to pans seasoned the old fashioned way
|
| Stainless steel is the more convenient option.
| dham wrote:
| But somehow butter and lard are bad, that's how this whole
| thing started
| singleshot_ wrote:
| It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken, as they used
| to say.
| yumraj wrote:
| And cast iron, which can get enough non-stick for many
| uses.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| As long as one doesn't mistake carcinogenic leftovers
| from previous cooking for seasoning. It's somehow common
| to think that seasoning means some deep umami flavor from
| food bits that get baked into it over time, when it only
| means the initial seasoning of the metal as a chemical
| process and still means you should wash your dishes like
| anything else after it's seasoned. and regular seasoning
| isn't stripped by washing with dish soap
| refulgentis wrote:
| Isn't that the seasoned alternative?
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| This is true, but maintaining the seasoning is annoying.
| If you want to scrub your pan out and get it really
| clean, or leave it soaking, you will likely need to
| repeat the seasoning process. It gets frustrating to have
| to coat it in oil and fire up the oven and all of that.
| You also cannot cook certain foods in cast iron pans due
| to this. For example, if you want to make a tomato-based
| sauce, you will risk leeching metal into your food due to
| the acidity.
|
| Personally I think each type of material has its place in
| the kitchen (nonstick, stainless steel, cast iron,
| enameled cast iron, etc)
| SAI_Peregrinus wrote:
| > If you want to scrub your pan out and get it really
| clean,
|
| You can scrub just fine with a chain scrubber or metal
| scraper. You shouldn't use Scotch-Brite pads, sandpaper,
| or other highly abrasive methods, but scrubbing is not an
| issue.
|
| You shouldn't soak.
|
| You can use most dish soaps. Some detergents are still
| caustic, but anything you can get on your hands without
| issue is fine. Don't use Ajax or similar highly alkaline
| and/or abrasive compounds. No lye.
|
| Re-seasoning after cleaning shouldn't need the oven. Get
| it hot on medium-low heat, wipe it with a thin layer of a
| reasonably unsaturated oil (refined olive oil, rapeseed
| AKA Canola oil, etc.) on a rag. Let it cool. If you
| really screwed it up repeat the process a once or twice.
| If you've totally stripped the pan and are putting on a
| totally new seasoning, 6-10 times is enough.
|
| All that said, I agree about acidic foods. Much like
| highly alkaline cleaners, they can degrade the seasoning.
| I use stainless steel for those.
|
| I likewise agree that each type of material has its
| place. I don't use nonstick because I have pet birds, and
| even tiny amounts of overheating can cause enough fumes
| to kill them. The rest are all useful to me.
| denkmoon wrote:
| I love my stainless steel pans but there is a reason non
| stick pans are by far the most popular. It requires
| planning (ie. food cannot come straight from the
| refridgerator) and technique (get pan hot _before_ adding
| oil/fat) to not leave half your meal stuck to the pan. Most
| people who don't get joy out of cooking don't want to deal
| with this.
|
| People are cooking at home for themselves less and less,
| and this has its own healthcare cost. Anything that reduces
| the number of people cooking at home is almost certainly a
| net loss for public health.
| swatcoder wrote:
| The many among us who already avoid those products, or who
| haven't gotten practical access to them, may be surprised by
| the tradeoffs you describe.
|
| Just because a technology has become pervasive in some lives
| doesn't mean that it does a lot that matters. Like any other
| tradition, its value is often incidental and its popularity
| is mostly an accident of history (marketing, curiosity,
| fashion, ephemeral supply/industry shocks, etc).
|
| Nonstick pans and synthetic fabrics are very much in that
| group.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| It's just a learning issue, how to use a steel pan or
| similar safer alternatives. There are cultural memes about
| what to use and why and what's easier and harder.
| dylan604 wrote:
| This is a very myopic view. The people to do like these
| things have a lot more money to spend to ensure these
| things are around for a while.
|
| While my view might be cynical, it is closer to reality
| than getting people to give up creature comforts
| voluntarily.
| phkahler wrote:
| >> The people to do like these things have a lot more
| money to spend to ensure these things are around for a
| while.
|
| No. If these things were never invented, those people
| would no be asking for them. Least not very much.
| dylan604 wrote:
| >If these things were never invented
|
| what an even more myopic view. if only unicorns were real
| and pots of gold were at the ends of rainbows. if only
| wishing made it so. You can't put the genie back in the
| bottle.
| creato wrote:
| You think people wouldn't be asking for non-stick pans?
| phkahler wrote:
| >> You think people wouldn't be asking for non-stick
| pans?
|
| Of course some would, but in a world where they never
| existed yet it would be a sort of fantasy wish. As an
| example where we are on the other side right now, people
| are trying to figure out how to make beverage containers
| out of paper. Not coffee cups, but longer term storage so
| you might buy a 6-pack of carbonated drink in a paper
| "can" vs metal or plastic. Never mind if you or I think
| that's a good idea, there are people working on it and
| some day it might come to be and people might think it's
| great for whatever reasons. My point is that the masses
| are not clamoring for paper cans _today_ because they don
| 't exist yet. Likewise, before the advent of non-stick
| pans, people weren't demanding them because they didn't
| know it was possible. That's all I meant. So no, I don't
| think people were _seriously_ asking for non-stick pans
| prior to their invention, they simply lived with what was
| available.
| dylan604 wrote:
| > carbonated drink in a paper "can" vs metal or plastic.
|
| The thing that gets me is that if something is so caustic
| or reactive that it is causing issues with the metal in
| the can, WHY is it a good idea for human consumption.
| I've seen concrete at one of those gives you wings
| beverage makers where the concrete at the shipping dock
| had to be replaced after enough spills weakened the
| concrete. Yet people still continue to put that in their
| bodies.
| eindiran wrote:
| The thing that makes them "caustic or acidic" is that
| they are acidic (~3pH), by virtue of having dissolved
| carbon dioxide (ie carbonic acid) + acidic preservatives
| in them. You are putting them into your stomach (with
| your gastric acid, ~2pH). If you spilled your stomach
| contents on the concrete shipping dock repeatedly, it
| would weaken the concrete much faster. Now, I don't drink
| soda and they are objectively bad for your teeth, but the
| fact that they eat away at concrete does not seem like
| the right reason to avoid them.
| mgerdts wrote:
| The stainless steel frying pan I use was purchased about
| 30 years ago as part of a set that included a couple
| saucepans and lids. I paid less than $50 for it new. That
| was a lot when I was a student, but not an out of reach
| luxury.
|
| If it helped me avoid eating 20 meals out it easily paid
| for itself.
| blueprint wrote:
| honestly it's way easier for me to wash my high carbon lodge
| pan ( _and_ i can put that sucker directly into the oven)
| because i use steel wire ball, maybe a little soap, and hot
| water briefly and it 's done. reseasoning up to the level
| needed is trivial with each use but one doesnt really worry
| about a proper season unless one cleans the pan with some
| insane pressure and soap. and pans dont really need to be
| seasoned to be used. the season helps avoid rust a little but
| then again you can simply store it with a finish of oil on if
| youre concerned about that.
|
| to be frank cleaning a teflon etc pan is way more finicky
| because we need, hey, wait, more microplastics in the form of
| slowly degrading acrylic sponge pads or brushes etc.. but i
| guess you could use alternatives.
|
| but anyway, there are also many other ways to keep dry lol
| it's not like teflon is the only solution
| Spivak wrote:
| Another alternative is enameled cast iron if you don't want
| to think about seasoning. My Le Creuset is one of my most
| treasured possessions.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| Nonstick pans require less fat to cook food. Is the health
| benefit of avoiding shedding greater than the benefit of
| being healthier in terms of fat percentage or weight? I am
| not so sure.
|
| Also as I recall PTFE coatings (Teflon is an example brand
| name) are no longer made with PFOA in the US or Europe. Yes,
| PTFE itself is a PFAS as well, but as far as I know it does
| not delaminate or shed as long as the pan is used at lower
| temperatures (less than 450F).
| electrograv wrote:
| Low fat diets are not healthier. The notion that fat is
| evil has been thoroughly debunked for quite some time now.
| notJim wrote:
| Fat is calorically dense. If you're trying to lose
| weight, you need to be careful about eating calorically
| dense foods. And if you want to eat more protein to
| maintain muscle while losing weight, there is a zero-sum
| trade-off between fat and protein.
| dham wrote:
| Interesting archaic theory, as me and my wife just lost
| 40lbs each by eating a ton of fat and protein, haha. If
| you want to lose weight, stay away from sugar, for
| example carbs
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| High fat high protein (with low carbs) can definitely be
| successful, as long as you're mindful of your approach
| and manage net calorie intake. But for lots of people it
| is easier to just eat what they do, but make minor tweaks
| to reduce the amount of fat as a way of reducing calories
| while still being satisfied by what they're eating.
| Different ways for different people.
| notJim wrote:
| The ad hominem isn't necessary, counting calories is
| working great for me. Glad you found something that works
| for you.
| devit wrote:
| Weight gain/loss depends on calories, so you can eat
| anything to either gain or lose weight as long as it's
| the proper quantity (although if you want to gain muscle
| then you also need enough proteins).
| nostrebored wrote:
| Yes, but fat also increases satiety.
|
| If you're trying to lose weight, you should be eating
| meals, not snacks and adding fat. You will eat less both
| during a meal and after.
| notJim wrote:
| Not sure what comment you're replying to, I didn't say
| anything about snacking or not eating fat.
| nostrebored wrote:
| > Fat is calorically dense. If you're trying to lose
| weight, you need to be careful about eating calorically
| dense foods.
|
| ?
| hunter2_ wrote:
| With all due respect, please check your carbon monoxide
| detectors.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| I think this is a misinterpretation of what has been
| debunked. Low fat diets are definitely healthier for more
| people because they almost always correlate with lower
| calorie intake. It's not the quality of it being a fat
| that makes it bad (this is what recent studies revisiting
| fats are saying). It's other qualities of fats that are
| problematic. For example, consider equal calorie intake
| between a protein source (like a steak) and a fat. Which
| do you think is going to fill you up more? Which do you
| think is healthier?
| blindriver wrote:
| You do realize that the campaign of low fat diets has
| completely been extinguished in the last 10 years?
|
| https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-news/low-
| fat-d...
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| I think you're misinterpreting the reevaluation of fats
| in recent years. I'm not demonizing fats and saying they
| need to be avoided entirely. But I am saying people
| (especially in America) need to moderate their intake of
| calories in general and fats specifically as well (as
| they're a vehicle for calories). There are also different
| varieties of fats with different health effects. Using
| nonstick cookware is an easy way to reduce the intake of
| fats (and therefore calories) even if you are not banning
| them from your diet entirely.
|
| Let's take a simple example: have you tried to make a
| fried egg in a cast iron pan and compared it to a
| nonstick pan? In a cast iron, you'll need to use a pat of
| butter to get the egg to slide easily (around 100
| calories). In nonstick you can get away with zero butter.
| It adds up.
| happyopossum wrote:
| A) A pat of butter is around 35 calories, and B) if
| you're putting a ton of butter in there it isn't exactly
| getting absorbed into the egg, most of it is left in the
| pan.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| I did several searches, and the sources I saw said a pat
| is 1 tablespoon and is 100 calories. Example:
| https://www.nutritionix.com/food/butter/pat
|
| But your latter point is fair. I haven't measured it. I
| just know that my experience of cooking in my cast iron
| requires a lot more fat than my other pans.
| WrongAssumption wrote:
| A tablespoon of butter is significantly more than what is
| considered a pat of butter.
| nostrebored wrote:
| People in America should be upping their fats and
| completely eliminating any low fat packaged foods from
| their diets. The results are unambiguous.
| Spivak wrote:
| I mean I guess but are people out there really optimizing
| their diets at the level of a drizzle/spray of oil or
| butter? The health difference can't possibly be worth it
| and barely moves the needle it's so little.
|
| I know it's my French heritage talking but life without
| butter isn't.
| notJim wrote:
| Absolutely yes people are. I'm active in weight loss
| communities to support my own weight loss, and yes we are
| careful about our fat consumption.
|
| The health difference is large for someone trying to lose
| weight. A tablespoon of butter isn't that filling, but
| contains about 150 calories. That's equivalent to a whole
| pot of non-fat yogurt or two eggs, both of which are more
| filling and give you more protein.
|
| When making eggs, I try to use about a teaspoon of
| butter, which still gives some butter flavor, but lets me
| save more calories for eggs.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| > are people out there really optimizing their diets at
| the level of a drizzle/spray of oil or butter
|
| Lots of people do this, and it's not because they're
| somehow ignorant and against all fats. It's more that
| people trying to be healthy make small tweaks they can
| live with that add up. It's not about being an extremist
| but just moderating things where you are willing to.
| Everyone's metabolism, dietary preferences, and lifestyle
| is different. If you live an active lifestyle with enough
| exercise or just have a higher metabolism, then it might
| make no difference to optimize at that level. But for
| lots of people it can make a big difference without
| making them feel like they can't eat what they want.
|
| Three meals a day prepared without added fat means
| savings of around 3-500 calories a day depending on how
| much fat you're using and your portion sizes. Keep in
| mind as well that not all calories are equal and calories
| from protein sources tend to be more filling (compare
| eating 3 tablespoons of butter versus a chicken breast).
| nostrebored wrote:
| It just doesn't, which is one of many reasons why low fat
| public health policy has failed to reduce obesity.
|
| When people don't eat fat, they eat more. If you have the
| self control around food to eat a low fat diet and
| reliably stick to your macros, you're probably not at a
| place where you're overweight to begin with.
|
| Giving your stomach something complex to break down while
| actually giving your body what it needs to add to vitamin
| stores results in less food consumed. You can't treat
| diet like a Lego set of what to eat while ignoring
| physiology.
| swatcoder wrote:
| Steaming, grilling, baking, air frying (convection baking),
| roasting, boiling, stewing, frying in seasoned cast iron,
| etc all "require less fat to cook food"
|
| If avoiding extra fat is one's highest priority, it's not
| like you're out of luck without nonstick pans.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| You're proposing eating different foods with different
| recipes and flavors when you suggest that steaming,
| grilling, etc are alternatives. If I want to prepare
| similar food to what I can make in a stainless steel or
| cast iron pan, but with less fat, a nonstick pan is the
| best tool. Also since you listed frying in a seasoned
| cast iron pan in your list of alternatives - that
| requires use of additional fat. Yes, even if it is fully
| properly seasoned.
| swatcoder wrote:
| Either the fat retained in the dish was negligble in the
| first place, in which case nonstick doesn't matter, or a
| nutritionally or aesthetically appreciable amount was
| retained, in which case you've _already_ changed the
| recipe and dish.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| It's a minor change to me. Something fried in a nonstick
| pan may not have the same sear as a steel or iron pan,
| but it's a lot closer than steaming, which is a totally
| different thing.
| jim-jim-jim wrote:
| > we'll be wet
|
| Waxed cotton works well enough for me. Have also heard good
| things about boiled wool, but don't own anything like this.
| samatman wrote:
| Once the fluorocarbons are made into PTFE, they no longer
| pose a threat. Teflon is so biologically inert that it gets
| used in medical devices implanted into humans. It isn't
| soluble in water or much of anything else.
|
| The problem is with PFOA and related compounds, which are
| used to make PTFE and friends.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| PFOA specifically is no longer in wide use. Most prominent
| manufacturers stopped using it as part of the PTFE
| manufacturing process 10+ years ago. And yes, I agree the
| science thus far shows that PTFE is basically inert. And to
| the extent a PTFE coating can separate from a pan, it
| requires high heat beyond the advertised temperature limits
| of nonstick pans anyways.
| waste_monk wrote:
| >we'll need to revert back to pans seasoned the old fashioned
| way (less convenient, careful washing).
|
| There are plenty of non-nonstick (stick?) options besides
| cast iron. Most of my cookware is stainless steel (with a
| thick disk of copper under the pan for thermal inertia) and
| I've never felt it's an inconvenience or difficult to clean -
| in fact, its durable nature allows for the use of coarse
| scrubbers or acid-based cleaning products that would quickly
| ruin a non-stick pan.
| adrr wrote:
| So we can get cancer from all the aldehydes and PAHs caused
| by overheating oil till in forms a polymer from oxidation.
| Even worse if you season the pan in your oven or stove top
| since now your breathing all that carcinogenic smoke in.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > people saying it's too expensive
|
| Always found that argument very strange - if it's too expensive
| to be healthy and alive, what the fuck is the money for?
| revscat wrote:
| Profit for those who can afford to protect themselves at the
| expense of others. At that point money is largely used for
| political power.
| redox99 wrote:
| There's a finite amount of resources (including labor). Money
| is a proxy for that.
| sp332 wrote:
| To paraphrase the author of Pictures for Sad Children, money
| is just a way for us to hurt each other.
| bagels wrote:
| They're already in the environment, and will continue to
| contaminate water even if they are no longer manufactured.
| laluser wrote:
| Can anyone recommend a good reverse osmosis filtration that is
| actually certified and made by a company you can actually trust?
| I have one now, but not sure that it filters some of the
| PFOS/PFAS chemicals. There are so many clearly scammy companies
| claiming different types of certifications.
| danfromjapan wrote:
| I'm also curious about this - particularly about filter
| membrane materials and nanoplastics
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| Make sure you have good air filtration too.
| kccqzy wrote:
| I use Coway, a Korean brand for my water filtration needs. They
| are a good brand and actually certified but looking closely at
| the product manual, they do not make the claim that they filter
| PFAS (defined as having a fully fluoridated methyl or methylene
| group): indeed they only claim to filter several chlorinated
| substances including tetrachloroethene.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| > not sure that it filters some of the PFOS/PFAS chemicals
|
| Just to clarify the terminology: PFOA, PFOS, PTFE, and
| thousands of other chemicals are all examples that are part of
| a larger group of (mostly) problematic chemicals called PFAS.
|
| Here is the EPA's guidance on filtration standards and how to
| identify filters that are effective for PFAS:
| https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2024-04/water-fil...
|
| That PDF has links to products certified by various
| certification bodies, and suggests looking for products
| certified against NSF 53, NSF 58, or both. but the EPA also
| notes the following:
|
| > It's important to note that the current certification
| standards for PFAS filters (as of April 2024) do not yet
| indicate that a filter will remove PFAS down to the levels EPA
| has now set for a drinking water standard. EPA is working with
| standard-setting bodies to update their filter certifications
| to match EPA's new requirements. In the meantime, remember that
| reducing levels of PFAS in your water is an effective way to
| limit your exposure.
|
| EWG has a list of recommended filters:
| https://www.ewg.org/research/getting-forever-chemicals-out-d...
| paulgerhardt wrote:
| Some engineer friends and I like Home Master given how modular
| it is - albeit a bit oldschool:
|
| https://www.theperfectwater.com/reverse-osmosis
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RqoPpZbszY
|
| In particular the permeate pump makes it more usable and less
| prone to clogging and the 'insta-hot' option is great for
| tea/coffee. I'm not a fan of their branding and vague NSF
| certifications but likewise see fewer red flags with them than
| their competitors. Eg it's made in the USA, they've been around
| for a while, they have a few patents to their name, and their
| based out of Phoenix where the water tastes like garbage so
| they probably dog food their product.
|
| My only wish is to upgrade the remineralization process to 'set
| and forget' a profile as described in this post on how to DIY
| name brand mineral waters:
| https://khymos.org/2012/01/04/mineral-waters-a-la-carte/
|
| If you go deep enough down the coffee-snob rabbit hole you
| eventually get into fun conversations about remineralization:
| https://www.baristahustle.com/blog/what-can-we-use-to-remine...
| - and cheekily https://thirdwavewater.com/
|
| For something less daunting and ready to go I've heard good
| things about the Waterdrop K6:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkTMsgOsgu0 - though there
| other models appear to be good too and the publish their
| reports on product pages such as this one:
| https://www.waterdropfilter.com/products/undersink-reverse-o...
| ohthanks wrote:
| I have built and sold RO systems for 20+ years. It's a weird
| industry and there are some competing desires in place. In
| general it's kind of a mess and it's difficult for consumers to
| navigate.
|
| You can build your own system for less than $150 from cheap
| parts on ebay. You can buy a branded unit at a big box or
| amazon for $150-250. Or a "health" branded version for
| $300-800. Or have an installer put whatever they sell in for
| $500-1500.
|
| My experience is that you will get nearly identical water
| quality from each of those systems. There are different options
| and some fine details but the fundamentals haven't changed in
| decades and you are paying for some collection of service,
| parts quality, future replacement costs, marketing and snake
| oil.
|
| NSF certification is good, it will rule out products that are
| flat out harmful. I have seen lots of cheap filters with fake
| certifications and there are many great filters that it don't
| carry certification. NSF material and safety cert (51) is a
| good one to look for, beyond that is has more to do with how
| the product will be sold and marketed than a real measure of
| performance.
|
| $250-500 is probably the right price range for a diy install
| unit. Check for replacement part costs, buy something with
| standard components and cartridge sizes. Learn how it works,
| change the filters on time and expect to replace components
| every now and then.
| michael9423 wrote:
| The RO industry is such a snake oil mess that instead I went
| for a high quality activated charcoal filter that can easily
| be changed after half a year for 30$, and combine it with
| water distillation.
| jeremy151 wrote:
| I live in a city that was a hot zone for this type of
| contamination in the drinking water due to industrial waste from
| leather processing buried in the 60's (shoe scraps treated with
| scotchgard.) We now have GAC filtering at the municipal supply
| level that is quite effective and not that expensive. The large
| beds of carbon last quite a while if I recall correctly. Despite
| regular testing, everyone I know RO filters their water
| regardless. For me, it's because I have no idea what new
| previously "unknown" contamination will be next discovered, and
| would rather get out as much as is reasonable.
|
| When the information began to surface I found it interesting the
| letters on public record going back to the 60's with people
| warning that allowing this kind of dumping was a bad idea. Of
| course being the primary employer to the entire city, the
| economics won at the time. Since, the cost of cleanup and
| lawsuits to that company have been massive.
| datascienced wrote:
| RO is cheap enough for middle class or above (order of
| magnitude is ~ what you might spend on uniforms and excursions
| for a kid in a state primary school). Assuming a self install.
| So it is a good option if you can afford it. Maybe RO becoming
| part of the standard set of things you buy (washing machine,
| vacuum cleaner etc.) is the way. You have to keep up to date
| with filter changes though.
|
| RO typically needs a post filter. Hopefully that doesn't add
| any bad chemicals. But you need it as pure water is desperate
| to bind, so you can either bind it to something you choose, or
| bind it to whatever pipe work / tanks are beyond the filter.
| Also you might want a higher ph.
|
| Maybe some disruption to make a nice looking, compact and cheap
| and zero install RO unit would be good and some subsidy for
| people without the means to buy one who live in risk areas.
| Plus subsidy for maintenance.
|
| If the design is like a printer where you pull out and push in
| new cartridges and have warning lights it will make maintenance
| easy.
| mattmaroon wrote:
| Check out Waterdrop. The cartridges do just pop out and in,
| and it's not zero install but it is very easy. If you can
| install a faucet you can install that.
|
| I got over 99% reduction according to a cheap TDS meter at my
| condo in Phoenix with the 2 filter one. I can replace
| cartridges in seconds. I love that thing.
|
| Zero install would probably suck as you'd have to fill tanks
| frequently (it rejects a good amount of water) and it would
| take up counter space but they do make em.
|
| Honestly in most places you can buy the stuff for 25 cents a
| gallon from a machine, which is what I would do if I did not
| feel like installing
| jxramos wrote:
| I've been a fan of the APEC countertop units;
| https://www.freedrinkingwater.com/products/reverse-
| osmosis-c...
|
| Been using them for a few years, water tastes great.
| datascienced wrote:
| That is a nice looking unit. I think as usual USA has
| more options! Might import something like this!
|
| If it did cold water too would be awesome.
| mattmaroon wrote:
| We are the best at having things to buy.
| datascienced wrote:
| Zero install to me means "a renter can use it". It could
| hijack your faucet outlet with a valve but allow your
| faucet to work anyway. This would require usually no tools
| or at worse a screwdriver to tighten a clip.
| mattmaroon wrote:
| Well, the only real change that's not easily reversible
| one might make when installing most of these units is if
| you don't already have a hole to mount the faucet in. A
| renter definitely shouldn't drill a hole in a countertop
| and most r/o units would require one. Any house built in
| the last few decades would probably have a built in dish
| soap dispenser you could pop out, but if not, no luck.
|
| Other than that just basic hand tools are involved. I
| would have no problem installing one in a rental but I'm
| also comfortable with plumbing. It's definitely a job
| that seems a lot more intimidating than it is.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| RO has some very easy to maintain, and user install options,
| which I've done.
|
| ( https://www.geappliances.com/ge/water-filtration-
| systems.htm )
|
| However RO is not water efficient, in the sense that only a
| fraction of water run over the RO membrane system is
| filtered, and otherwise inbound water goes on into the drain.
| You can hear this happening, and it's documented by GE, for
| example, as how the systems work. That makes me wonder if
| there are other systems with the characteristic that a higher
| % of ingested water ends up filtered as well as RO can.
| greenavocado wrote:
| A permeate pump can typically reduce water waste in reverse
| osmosis systems by up to 80%. In general, permeate pumps
| can achieve a waste water reduction of around 50% to 80%.
| This means that for every gallon of purified water
| produced, only around 20% to 50% is wasted as reject water.
| This is achieved by utilizing the energy from the brine
| flow to enhance the pressure applied to the feed water,
| leading to increased permeate production and reduced reject
| water volume. Typically, these pumps range from $50 to $200
| and they do not use electricity.
|
| The elevated pressure allows for more effective filtration
| and higher water recovery rates. By boosting the pressure,
| permeate pumps facilitate a greater volume of water passing
| through the semi-permeable membrane, resulting in increased
| production of purified water (permeate) and reduced reject
| water (brine). The heightened pressure helps overcome
| osmotic pressure and allows for a more thorough extraction
| of purified water from the feed stream.
| wbl wrote:
| The domestic RO systems put pressure on the clean water
| output and don't have recovery systems for brine
| pressure? What? My only experience with RO systems are on
| sailboats, where a brine pressure recovery system is the
| only way to get the power down, and the water trickles
| into the tank under low pressure from where it is pumped
| out.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| The linked system above just sends the unfiltered tap
| water down the drain. I have had two iterations of the GE
| system and it says so in the manual, for instance. I am
| not sure about other brands and their systems.
| greenavocado wrote:
| Most in-home systems sold today drain to waste without
| any attempt at recovery to keep manufacturing costs low.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| Yeah my dad has an RO system at their house but it goes to
| a special tap next to the main one that is used only for
| drinking water, due to the waste associated. Maybe it isn't
| needed for hand washing, showers, etc as long as there are
| good standards at the water distribution facility.
| datascienced wrote:
| Thats how I use it. In theory the waste could be used for
| irrigation or mixed into shower water but that requires
| more plumbing to deal with an external cost (in areas
| where water is limited).
| mattmaroon wrote:
| Well, if you live somewhere with a municipal water
| supply, the water just gets recycled anyway. I suppose if
| you're on septic it's still going right back into the
| ground it came from.
|
| Drinking water is probably such a small percent of
| overall water use that wasting even a multiple of it
| doesn't amount to much anyway.
|
| So filter away! I'll worry about my r/o waste when people
| stop diverting rivers to grow almonds in the desert and
| not a second before.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| I think the point is that we should not as a general rule
| recommend people do RO for their entire house. Toilets,
| showers, and washing machines don't need RO water and if
| a lot of people did a whole home RO system we would start
| to see waste add up.
| mattmaroon wrote:
| Oh. Sure. That will always be so cumbersome we don't have
| to worry about it. That would be a huge RO system. They
| don't have a lot of throughput so you'd need a big
| storage tank or a very large set of filters and a pump
| I'd think. I'm not at all concerned whole home RO will
| every be common.
| rtkwe wrote:
| A big issue is returning it to the ground doesn't mean it
| reenters the aquafer you might be drawing from if you're
| on a well system. It happens all over the place and
| especially in California, the aquafers aren't replenished
| well by ground water (and the extreme pumping causes the
| aquafer to compress permanently losing water capacity).
| r00fus wrote:
| Anyone considered just sending the brine to the yard as
| gray water?
| bagels wrote:
| I don't have a child, and don't know how much a child's
| uniform or excursion costs. Why not price it in dollars?
| ninininino wrote:
| RO doesn't really solve for filtering the water naturally
| inside of crops or meat. If you have a huge increase in
| groundwater pollution in a country, if your food supply isn't
| also in a closed system where only filtered water comes in,
| then you've only reduced your contaminant consumption not
| eliminated it.
| TylerE wrote:
| > For me, it's because I have no idea what new previously
| "unknown" contamination will be next discovered, and would
| rather get out as much as is reasonable.
|
| This really resonates with where my thinking has gone. While I
| always try to be guided by science, my default these days is
| much closer to "assume it isn't safe" than "assume it is". I've
| got multiple chronic medical conditions that me both more
| susceptible to getting to sick, and more likely to have
| complications/have a slow recovery if I do. So for instance, I
| keep (medical grade) gloves at home and wear them when using
| any sort of cleaning chemicals. My skin is fragile anyway, and
| almost any sort of solvent (that isn't water) is at least
| somewhat bad for you, either short or long term.
| mrtesthah wrote:
| > So for instance, I keep (medical grade) gloves at home and
| wear them when using any sort of cleaning chemicals.
|
| Most of the risk is from the VOCs:
|
| https://www.ewg.org/news-insights/news-
| release/2023/09/clean...
| peterbecich wrote:
| The California DWR has this map:
|
| locations of potential sources of per- and polyfluoroalkyl
| substances (PFAS)
| https://gispublic.waterboards.ca.gov/portal/apps/webappviewe...
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| Does California specify which water mains are old asbestos
| cement pipes? That famously caused ecological disasters in the
| Bay Area 20+ years ago, but they didn't (in newspaper articles
| i saw) show the extent of such.
| peterbecich wrote:
| I'm not aware of that. I doubt asbestos cement water mains
| are a significant health risk to the end user. I think any
| asbestos that could become airborne is a risk. To the workers
| who installed those pipes, certainly.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| Asbestos is implicated in gastrointestinal cancers too.
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4856305/
| _heimdall wrote:
| Removing it from tap water seems like a great first step for
| mitigation. But what about preventing them in water in the first
| place?
|
| We shouldn't be using these chemicals. Period. Sure we're hooked
| on them now, but sunken cost is a terrible reason to continue
| down a bad path.
|
| We use these chemicals largely because industry kept finding more
| and more ways to use manufacturing byproducts. In theory that's
| great and all, but we avoid questioning if we should change that
| manufacturing process instead. A little pain now can avoid a
| mountain of pain later if we're actually willing to think ahead
| and question what we have today rather than focusing on what the
| next step forward is without ant context of how or why we got
| here.
| DantesKite wrote:
| A few years ago, the PPM in my town's water was over 850 PPM,
| well above the recommended guidelines. Worse than that, it had a
| distinct sulfur-like smell.
|
| So naturally we got a reverse osmosis water filter system and
| while the tap water has improved since then, I'm always reminded
| of the occasional accidents that can occur (e.g., lead, excessive
| chlorination, plain old entropy).
|
| Plus it makes the water taste significantly better. Even if tap
| water was always perfectly safe to drink, I'd get one just for
| the taste alone.
|
| Brondell Circle RO systems are my favorite because the filters
| are the easiest to change and when you have the same system for
| years, that ends up being the labor you repeat the most.
| michael9423 wrote:
| Is Brondell just selling a white-labeled Coway product with
| their Circle RO system?
| VelesDude wrote:
| When it comes large scale stuff... Cheesecake for everyone. Easy
| to say, difficult to do.
|
| The best move is prevention rather than correction.
| j45 wrote:
| I wonder if this kind of regulation exists in another country
| near or far.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Meddling bureaucrats, it's my right to get cancer or some weird
| life-changing medical condition and the woke mob wants to take it
| away from me.
| dang wrote:
| Please don't do this.
| rgrieselhuber wrote:
| Toxic waste such as fluoride should be removed too.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| Reminder:
|
| - The waterproof tape you used for your plumbing is made of PFAS.
|
| - Your floss too
|
| - Microwave popcorn and cupcakes
|
| - Contact lenses
|
| - Tampons
| ars wrote:
| That's not true. Teflon is not a PFAS because it's missing the
| "tail" that makes it active.
|
| Teflon's predecessor PFOA is a PFAS, but there's not normally
| any remaining in the final produce. There is a valid concern
| with manufacturing of course, but not with use.
| aaronbrethorst wrote:
| I bet this gets trashed when the Supreme Court reverses the
| Chevron doctrine this summer.
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loper_Bright_Enterprises_v._...
| cogman10 wrote:
| Probably not immediately, but yeah. The EPA is about to be
| completely neutered. Every corporation out there is going to
| challenge it's authority when they get busted polluting.
| jorblumesea wrote:
| or if trump wins in 2024 and he guts the epa himself. crazy how
| many structural forces US citizens need to fight just to get
| clean drinking water.
| Sporktacular wrote:
| I remember first reading as a kid about DDT and thinking, wow, we
| really dodged a bullet with that one. Never could have imagined
| we wouldn't learn but go on to make and under-regulate hundreds
| of toxic substances in its place.
| 99112000 wrote:
| "First ever" has been used very leniently here. Maybe it's the
| first ever for any state in America but the rest of the world
| definitely already has limits on it.
| ShamelessC wrote:
| "_U.S._ imposes first-ever _national_ drinking water limits"
|
| emphasis mine.
| cgh wrote:
| Note: 1 ppt == 1 ng/L.
|
| The EU limits are 500 ng/L for the sum of all PFAS in drinking
| water. Canada has an "objective" of 30 ng/L but I don't know
| how well it's enforced. The US proposal is for 4 ng/L for each
| PFAS but I'm not sure how they calculate the combined amounts.
| If it's simple addition, then it's 38 ng/L according to the
| article.
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