ON TAP – THE UNWANTED DRUGS IN OUR WATER

It’s not just sewage we should be concerned about in our nation’s drinking water sources, although the slew of negative headlines about sewage in our lakes and rivers continues to make disturbing, if not shocking, reading.

The water companies in England and Wales have serious questions to answer with the Environment Agency reporting that there were 3.6 million hours (that’s just shy of a staggering 411 years’ worth) of sewage spills by water companies in England and Wales in 2023.

Anticonvulsants, diabetes drugs, antibiotics – and more…

Now we’re being told, through research just published by the University of York and the Rivers Trust, that our water is being worryingly polluted with drugs, too – and not just in our cities, but in remote locations in our national parks.

The most frequently detected active pharmaceutical ingredients were caffeine, carbamazepine (an anticonvulsant used to treat epilepsy), metformin (used to treat type 2 diabetes and polycystic ovary syndrome), and the antihistamines fexofenadine and cetirizine. Antibiotics, too, with as much as 3,461 nanograms per litre (ng/l) being found, which is high enough to actually contribute to antibiotic resistance.

Whilst this may be a global phenomenon, a spokesman for Water UK, which represents the water industry, said: “The UK risks falling behind the rest of Europe which is tackling pharmaceutical residues in the environment with new targets and funding from drug companies.”  Late in the day, perhaps, the water companies are now proposing a record £105 billion investment which will include reducing pharmaceutical residues.

With water companies extracting more and more water from our lakes and rivers and resorting to increased recycling of wastewater, and the treatment of sewage effluent to make up for supply shortfalls, something that will certainly be further impacted by climate change in the future, the question is what you can do about things to improve the water in your taps now.

Pure H2O has a solution to the problem

Actually we have a range of solutions, including our  RODI+™ and PurityPRO™, which form part of our latest line-up of industry-beating, world-class water purifying products:

All RODI+™ reverse osmosis systems benefit from ROIntelligence™, programmed for efficient production with membrane protection, integrated leak detection and auto isolation. The membrane automatically flushes once a week, a process developed by Dr T Cummings, one of the world’s foremost water treatment design engineers, maintaining your system in peak performance at all times.

RODI+™ reverse osmosis systems use a unique four stage process. Water passes through a granular activate carbon stage, followed by reverse osmosis, de-ionisation, and finally carbon, removing 99.9% of all organic and inorganic contaminants from tap water, providing you with the healthiest and best tasting water.

Compact in design RODI+™ can slide in the kick space below your cabinets and a range of storage tanks from 4 litres up to 200 litres can be connected to suit any busy environment.

All RODI+™ reverse osmosis systems come with our standard faucet. For the ultimate experience, we recommend installing with a Quatreau® tap, providing you with the purest Boiling, Chilled and Sparkling water at the touch of a button.

PurityPRO are designed and built in Woking by some of the world’s foremost Reverse Osmosis Engineers, PurityPRO is the most advanced drinking water purifier, the most water efficient and power efficient RO system for the home and office producing the purest drinking water with a neutral pH7.

Upgrade to Chilled and Sparkling options with our Quatreau® SmartTap range.

PURE H2O is proud to have ISO 14001 certification, an internationally recognized standard for environmental management systems in business. This enables us to identify, control and monitor the impacts our business has on the environment, as well as  providing a structure to assist us to identify legal compliance, reduce waste and pollution and keep improving.