Over 90% of Americans have pesticides in their bodies.
Gross!
And in a recent study by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, they found 44 different types of pesticides in public water supplies.
Luckily, for just a few hundred dollars you can install a filtration device that removes 99.9% of harmful contaminants, including pesticides.
Let’s take a closer look at the pesticides that may be lurking in your tap water and how to remove them...
Pesticides are substances used to control “pests” like insects, weeds, fungus, and even rodents (rodenticide).
The most common types of pesticides are:
Some pollute water in the form of microbes, some enter the groundwater, and others stay in the soil for long periods of time.
Although pesticides are sprayed on the produce we eat, they’re still highly toxic to humans.
Consuming pesticides in contaminated drinking water can have a long list of short and long-term side effects.
Even small doses of pesticides that were once considered safe can actually cause serious damage to developing brains and bodies.
Depending on the type and level of exposure, pesticides can wreak havoc on the nervous system.
Short-term effects of pesticide exposure include nausea, flu, headaches and stomach illnesses.
Over time, chronic exposure can lead to:
A recent medical review found that “"Most studies on non-Hodgkin lymphoma and leukemia showed positive associations with pesticide exposure.”
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends keeping children away from pesticides as much as possible, and a 2014 review even found links between autism and pesticides.
Most pesticides sneak into the water supply as runoff from agricultural operations.
At the same time, rainwater washes lawn care chemicals into irrigation channels, rivers and lakes. And those insecticides used to treat pets? They go right down the shower drain.
The bottom line is, the pesticides we use have to go somewhere, and they eventually make their way into our freshwater.
No private well or public reservoir is safe, and removing pesticides from groundwater can sometimes be an impossible task.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is in charge of regulating water contaminant levels throughout the country.
However, they do not regulate well water, so if you belong to the 14% of Americans who are on a private well, you’re on your own.
The Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act outlines regulations surrounding the production, distribution and use of pesticides, but some inevitably slip through the cracks.
At the end of the day, it’s up to you to control what’s coming out of your tap.
In the United States, people living in rural agricultural areas on private wells are the most at risk.
California is one of the nation’s biggest agricultural regions in the country, and they use close to 210 million pounds of pesticides a year, much of which trickles down into the water supply.
In the end, it’s our children who suffer the most from the long-term side effects, so if you have a young family it’s especially important to monitor your water quality closely.
Are you ready to test your tap?
You should do it at least once or twice a year, but even more often if you’re on a private well.
Residents on municipal water receive an annual water report from their local supplier, but they often fail to protect the public from some of the worst pollutants, like pesticides.
The EPA regulates roughly 90 contaminants, but there are a total of 1600 unique toxic compounds, including dozens of pesticides, that could be lurking in your water at any given time.
You can find plenty of do-it-yourself testing kits online, but it’s best to have a professional laboratory do the testing for you.
The EPA provides a list of certified testing facilities in your area. They’ll provide a comprehensive analysis of all the contaminants in your water.
Once you know exactly what you’re up against, you’ll be able to make a more educated decision about the type of filter to install.
In order to get safe, quality drinking water for you and your family, installing a water filter is the way to go.
The right water system can remove 99.9% of pesticides and other harmful contaminants, including disease-causing compounds like arsenic, lead, bacteria and cysts.
At the same time, they improve the taste and smell of the water and protect your pipes from “hard” minerals.
Most under-sink filters are cost-effective for residential use and range in price from $200 to $600.
If you want to protect your whole house and not just the kitchen sink, you can install a point-of-entry filter and purify your water before it even comes inside.
Here’s an overview of the best types of water filtration systems for removing pesticides from your water:
Reverse osmosis (RO) systems are the most effective way to remove pesticides from drinking water.
They work by forcing pressurized water through a semipermeable membrane. Clean water passes through and pesticides get left behind.
But RO systems leverage more than just reverse osmosis—they incorporate several types of technologies to remove every last bit of harmful contaminants.
Stages of RO systems include:
The best RO systems also add healthy electrolytes back into the water through a process called remineralization. The final product is nutritious pH-balanced water that’s entirely pesticide-free.
Carbon filters, or activated charcoal, are a basic type of filtration that is most effective for removing chlorine, not pesticides.
However, when combined with alumina adsorption, research shows that it can effectively remove trace amounts of pesticides from drinking water. With that said, it’s not going to be able to remove high concentrations of pesticides and other contaminants.
RO systems, on the other hand, combine carbon filtration with several other pesticide-destroying technologies.
Distillation is unique in that it doesn’t “filter” water in the traditional sense.
Instead of running water through a series of membranes and filters, distillers heat the water until it turns into steam.
The steam is then funneled through a tube and into a sterile glass container where it’s allowed to cool back into water.
What’s left is relatively pure drinking water.
However, this process isn’t as thorough as reverse osmosis—some pollutants might turn into vapor during the heating process, travel through the tube, and recondense with the clean water.
Another downside to distillers is that they remove all the healthy minerals and don’t have a remineralization process to add them back in.
When it comes down to it, distillation should only be used as a last resort.
No matter which type of filter you choose, make sure that it’s approved by water quality organizations like NSF International.
Cloud Water Filters use a combination of sediment filtration, activated charcoal, ion exchange resins, RO membrane, carbon polishing filter and remineralization to leave your water clean, pure, healthy and delicious.
You’ll never have to worry about toxic residue building up in your filter membranes, because Cloud uses built-in software to track your water usage and automatically ship replacement filters right to your door. It even syncs to an app on your phone so that you can monitor your water quality 24/7.
It’s time to say “sayonara” to pesticides!
Click here to learn more.
