Water crisis, opportunities for drinking water treatment
it hasn’t rained for months, drought brings problems everywhere, in nature, in agriculture, in human life and even in drinking water.
The lack of water leads to a lower standard in the drinking water quality supplied at the point of use. When water resources are low, they are forced to access resources of lower quality and tap water suffers. To be precise, water is always drinkable, but its quality and especially its organoleptic quality decreases.
How drought affects the quality of drinking water
The lack of water leads the need for collections where the groundwater level is lower, with an increase in turbidity and in the silt present.
Water shortage leads to the use of water resources that require greater chlorination, the water is not very pleasant to the palate and the formation of disinfection by-products.
The lack of water together with high temperatures lead to algal growth, which is perceived with the smell of stale. It is nothing more than an algal florescence with the presence of cyanobacteria, harmless, but a producer of geosmin.
Treatment at the point of use can significantly improve the organoleptic quality of home water
Mechanical fine membrane filtration systems, such as 0.5 micron pre-coat filters, stop much of the silt and at the same time are not subject to clogging.
The carbon block candle filters suffer a lot from the silt present in summer waters and especially in periods of drought. Those declared 0.5 micron if they do not clog in presence of silt it is because the manufacturer declares what is convenient for him and nobody checks … From direct experience, with carbon block filters, in the presence of silt the occlusion is rapid and sure. In the past we did a test with Made in USA filters declared 1 micron: it’s been a disaster, they occluded quickly.
Carbon filters are great for removing chlorine and its compounds.
The removal of cyanobacteria, should be associated with an antibacterial action, the use of silver filters is strongly recommended.
Reverse osmosis and water shortage
The reduction of available water resources could put the use of a system that has to discard water to produce treated water in a bad light. But in the end it is a false problem, modern direct production plants have a waste rate of 1 to 2/3, i.e. for every liter of osmotic water, between 2 to 3 liters are discarded, which is certainly not a great damage in the domestic economy in the use of water resources.
Osmosis is also an excellent filtration system which in some cases is necessary to have good and healthy drinking water.
Water cooling
A slightly different case are the cold and sparkling water dispensers with the water-cooled refrigeration circuit. These systems are generally used when the sink is narrow and the refrigerator circuit does not breathe. These very efficient systems in cold periods tend to be large consumers of water in summer as the cooling water enters at already high temperatures and therefore significantly increases the amount of water consumed. (in some extreme cases we measured a consumption of over 150 liters of water per day for cooling only). In these cases it is good to evaluate the issue of traditional air systems, perhaps those evolved with static condenser, silent and with low heating.
Global warming and environmental destruction: reducing unnecessary consumption reducing unnecessary production
The use of zero-km water, even if it’s a small step is a contribution to the environment, means less production, less pollution, less global warming. Using point-of-use treatment systems to improve home water quality helps twice. You drink better and consume less, all for the benefit of our planet.