Tag: water

Boiling Hard Tap Water Removes Up To 90% Of Microplastics: Study

Boiling tap water is good for more than just killing certain harmful pathogens. It can also destroy contaminants such as microplastics and chemicals, making drinking water safer to drink.

A new research letter published in Environmental Science & Technology Letters indicates that boiling tap water for just five minutes could reduce the amount of microplastics by up to 90 percent. Researchers from Guangzhou Medical University and the Center for Environmental Microplastics Studies in China recommend boiling water in nonplastic electric kettles on gas stoves to remove impurities such as polystyrene, polyethylene, and polypropylene.

According to the researchers, boiling water has been used since ancient times as a purification method in some Asian countries. “This simple boiling-water strategy can ‘decontaminate’ [nano- and microplastics] from household tap water and has the potential for harmlessly alleviating human intake of [nano- and microplastics] through water consumption,” they wrote.

Harder Water Captures More Microplastics

Water of a certain alkalinity and hardness typically produces incrustants—insoluble mineral remnants like calcium carbonate—upon boiling. For the study, the researchers hypothesized that calcium carbonate encounters nanoplastics as it crystallizes in hot water. The calcium carbonate then encapsulates the nanoplastics as it becomes the flaky crust you sometimes see at the bottom of your tea kettle.

The study showed that boiling hard tap water containing 300 milligrams per liter (mg/L-1) of calcium carbonate reduced nano- and microplastics by nearly 90 percent, while water containing 80 mg/L-1 reduced particles by 84 percent. In soft water samples containing less than 60 mg/L-1 of calcium carbonate, boiling still reduced plastics by over 25 percent.

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California’s Fecal Fiasco Deepens With ‘Toilet-To-Tap’ Sewage Approval

California – known for its poo-lined streets, is one step closer to Soylent Green, after state officials approved new “toilet-to-tap” regulations which would allow water agencies to take wastewater from homes, recycle it, and then deliver it back to households in an effort to maximize the state’s water supply.

“It will truly be the highest quality water delivered in the state when it’s done,” according to Darrin Polhemus, director of the Division of Drinking Water and the State Water Resources Control Board, the NY Post reports.

Officials swear it’s safe (until it’s not, we assume), due to three rigorous stages of treatment. The poo water is treated for pathogens and viruses that is allegedly so effective that minerals have to be added back into the water to give it taste.

“If one fails, there’s still two remaining in its place as backups to make sure nothing goes untreated,” said Polhemus.

California is notoroiusly drought-prone and depends on water from other states via the Colorado River.

However, 2023 brought an exceptional amount of rain, and by October, the state was over 99% drought-free, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Although the water will be more expensive than imported water, the supply is more renewable and reliable, according to CalMatters.

California is the second state to allow the process, following Colorado. -NY Post

The Golden State has been using recycled water in farming and watering lawns for several decades, however this would be the first time it’s been used for potable water.

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California’s ‘toilet-to-tap’ approved — treated sewage coming back into homes

Who ever claimed Californians were full of crap?

Officials in the Golden State this week approved new “toilet-to-tap” regulations, allowing water agencies to take wastewater from homes, recycle it and pump it back to households in an effort to boost the state’s dwindling water supply.

“It will truly be the highest quality water delivered in the state when it’s done,” said Darrin Polhemus, director of the Division of Drinking Water and the State Water Resources Control Board.

Despite some trepidation from consumers, officials have guaranteed the scheme is safe due to the wastewater undergoing three rigorous stages of treatment.

The water is treated for pathogens and viruses in a way officials say is so thorough, minerals actually have to be added back to improve the taste.

“If one fails, there’s still two remaining in its place as backups to make sure nothing goes untreated,” Polhemus said. 

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Why water rationing is coming down the pipeline

Body odour could soon be making a comeback. Why? Because the UK government is looking to impose stringent reductions on home water usage. The media have suggested that this might mean the end of power showers, but the limits being mooted in Whitehall will bear down on water use as a whole. This will affect showering, taking baths, hand washing, cleaning clothes, and more.

The plan is spelled out in a new 81-page report put out this week by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA). Titled Our Integrated Plan for Delivering Clean and Plentiful Water (or Our Plan for Water, for short), the document details how the government intends to plug what it believes will be a shortage of four billion litres per day in the public water supply by 2050. In part, this will be done, under the Environment Act 2021, by cutting household water use from an average of 144 litres per person per day to 122 per person per day in 2038, and then to just 110 litres per person per day by 2050.

Make no mistake, this is a positively draconian policy. Worst of all, it places most of the blame and responsibility for water management on to the consumer – letting the water companies, regulators and the government itself off the hook.

Last month, a House of Lords select committee reported that no new reservoirs will be built before 2029. It also said that water regulator Ofwat has ‘historically given more focus to a short-term desire to keep water bills low at the expense of long-term environmental and security-of-supply considerations’. In other words, the regulator has fallen asleep at the wheel, letting leaks multiply, sewage pile up and reservoirs fall into disrepair. Yet the implication of Our Water Plan is that we consumers are mostly at fault for the water shortages of the future. It is we who must tighten our belts, and we who must install smart meters to ration our use.

Water companies have escaped censure entirely. For instance, environment secretary Thérèse Coffey proclaimed last week that companies guilty of water pollution ‘could’ face unlimited penalties. But, after more than 300,000 sewage spills in 2022, she also concedes that she cannot stop such incidents ‘overnight’.

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Drinking Tap Water Containing Lithium While Pregnant Could Raise Autism Risk For Children

Pregnant women who drink tap water containing high levels of lithium are more likely to have children with autism, a new study warns. Researchers analyzed data from Denmark and found that mothers-to-be drinking water with the highest lithium levels were almost 50 percent more likely to have autistic children.

The team from UCLA found that the higher the lithium levels in the water supply, the more likely women were to give birth to babies with autism. Study authors warn that lithium levels in water could become more widespread in the near future due to lithium battery use and disposal in landfills — which could lead to an increase in developmental disabilities such as autism.

Researchers say this is one of the first ever studies to identify naturally-occurring lithium in water as a potential risk factor for autism. The team studied data collected from Denmark over 16 years, between 1997 and 2013. They chose to use the Danish data due to the country having the lowest consumption of bottled water in Europe, meaning most of the population drinks tap water.

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Shocking Investigation Finds Widespread Uranium Contamination in US Water Supply

A new investigation looks into the extent to which U.S. water supplies are contaminated with uranium.

Maybe it’s the good kind of uranium that turns you into Spider-Man or the Incredible Hulk and not the bad kind of uranium that turns you into Thyroid Cancer Man – one of the lesser-known Marvel superheroes.

ProPublica has come out with an investigation entitled “The Cold War Legacy Lurking in U.S. Groundwater.” After World War II, the Cold War started between the U.S.S.R. and the U.S. because the rich needed to stop the damn Communists from pushing their furry hats on everyone! There was a feverish need to build loads of nuclear weapons. To do that, the U.S. needed uranium, and its ruling class didn’t care how they got it.

More than 50 uranium mines popped up across the Western U.S. But they didn’t just turn our weapons radioactive. They also “dumped radioactive and toxic waste into rivers like the Cheyenne in South Dakota and the Animas in Colorado. … Some of the more than 250 million tons of toxic and radioactive detritus… scattered into nearby communities, some spilled into streams and some leaked into aquifers.”

Luckily for the U.S. government at the time, most of the people having their lives destroyed by radioactive detritus were either Native Americans, poor, or both. And as we know well, none of those groups matter to the ruling class – not then and not now. They don’t care about anybody who doesn’t have enough money to have, at minimum, one backup tax haven for when their first tax haven floods due to climate change.

Providing clean water is the most basic responsibility of a government. The U.S. government – the richest in the world – can’t do that, which puts this country at the level of a failed state.

And this is nothing new. The U.S. government – which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of corporate America – has a long history of polluting its own people’s drinking water.

Of course, everyone knows about the lead-tainted water of Flint, Michigan. But did you know that in 2016, excessive lead levels were found in almost 2,000 water systems across all 50 states?

This year, shocking levels of lead were found in Chicago’s tap water. But of course, it goes far beyond lead.

Also this year, as reported by ABC News, “A lawsuit alleged the Navy ‘harbored toxic secrets’ after jet fuel leaked from a storage facility in Red Hill, Hawaii operated by the Navy, contaminating locals’ drinking water and sickening hundreds of families.”

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Climate-activist celebrities ‘wasting thousands of gallons of water’ amid California drought

Kim Kardashian, Kourtney Kardashian and Kevin Hart are among several celebrities being accused of wasting over a million gallons of water in May and June in violation of California’s drought restrictions, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The Kardashians, Hart, Sylvester Stallone and former NBA star Dwyane Wade used an excess of 1.4 million gallons of water in the months of May and June and received notices from Las Virgenes Municipal Water District concerning the excess usage, according to the Times’ review of documents it acquired through the California Public Records Act. The Kardashians and Hart are among celebrities who have previously pushed to combat climate change, a phenomenon that may be exacerbating California’s drought, according to the state’s Department of Water Resources.

Two properties in the Hidden Hills neighborhood listed under a trust associated with Kim Kardashian received notices that the properties were in violation of their June water allowance by about 232,000 gallons, according to the Times. Kourtney Kardashian’s 1.86-acre property in Calabasas also allegedly exceeded its water limits by roughly 101,000 gallons.

The Kardashians have previously supported actions to stop climate change such as promoting veganism or ending the use of plastic bottles. Kim Kardashian praised Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg in 2019, calling climate change a “serious problem,” Reuters reported.

The Las Virgenes Municipal Water District called for a 50% use reduction attempt in response to California’s drought and restricted watering lawns and plants to one day each week, according to the district’s website.

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California To Hire “Water Cops” As Residents Ignore Newsom’s Conservation Plea Amid Megadrought

California plans to hire “water cops” to monitor people and businesses wasting water as statewide usage soared in March despite Gov. Gavin Newsom declaring a drought emergency last July and parts of Southern California under water restrictions, according to The Mercury News. 

The Santa Clara Valley Water District, south of the San Francisco Bay Area, encompassing 15 cities and more than 2 million residents, is considering “water cops” to police neighborhoods and business districts for water wasters. People who are wasting water could be fined up to $500. 

Water cops may slap citations for people watering their yards for long periods of time and washing cars in the driveway. 

Aaron Baker, the COO of Valley Water, told CBS News that water cops are “needed because of the unprecedented times we’re in, and because we aren’t making enough progress on our water savings.” 

The threat of water cops snooping on people comes as California’s total water usage in March was the most since 2015 despite calls for conservation amid a megadrought. 

California Water Resources Control Board said water usage jumped 19% compared to March 2020. 

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