Treated Water Protects Your Family
Your kids are the most important thing in your life. You spend so much time and effort making sure they’re safe, set up for the future, and in good health. You make sure they have health insurance, save up for college, and endure all of the emotional exhaustion that comes with trying to get them to eat their broccoli.
Why wouldn’t you also want to make sure the water they’re drinking, bathing in, and splashing around in is free of chemicals and contaminants?
Tap water in Toronto and the GTA
With so many people skipping the soda and opting instead for good, clean water, it’s important to take that extra step and ensure the water you’re drinking is as clean as possible.
Toronto tap water is treated at the surface — chlorine and chloramine are added to kill any bacteria and ensure you don’t get sick with cholera, typhoid, or other pathogen-induced illness. But that’s where it stops.
The truth is, it’d be far too expensive for the city to treat the water enough to make sure there’s nothing in it that will harm you. There are traces of heavy metals like mercury and arsenic, leftover pharmaceuticals and industrial waste that have been disposed of into the water supply, and chemicals that are created as byproducts of the chlorine and chloramine — some of them known carcinogens (like VOCs).
Chlorine creates disinfection byproducts
Johns Hopkins University conducted a study on chlorinated tap water, finding that when chlorine is combined with phenols (naturally-occurring chemicals in water that also exist in pharmaceuticals and personal care products), the mixture produces chemical byproducts.
While some of these we know about and the city treats for (like chloroform), the study found that many more are left unacknowledged. According to Carsten Prasse, the lead author of the study, the water authorities only regulate a small number of these byproducts — the same ones that have been regulated since the 1980s.
One of these previously undetected byproducts found in the chlorinated water is BDA, a toxic compound and known carcinogen — and a surprise to the researchers.
It's better to be safe
In truth, there haven’t been enough studies to know what the long-term effects of chlorine in our water supply really are — or the cumulative effects of other contaminants found in our water. The study above isn’t the only one to raise serious concerns about undetected compounds and their detriment to long-term health.
What we do know right now, however, is that there are presently compounds in our drinking water that have been proven to be harmful. While they may be at low levels, when it comes to our families, we’d much rather be safe than sorry.
Is it time for the next step?
Ready to see if an EcoWater system is right for you?
Give us a call any time at (416) 491-9945 or book an appointment here. You can also use the form below, and we'll be in touch!