Dasani - under the gun

Opentappiness.org is a website designed to bring attention to the issue that Coke's Dasani bottled water brand misleads us by suggesting its product is pure mountain water when in reality it is bottled tap water. The campaign is sponsored by www.thinkoutsidethebottle.org. As a water "professional", it must be said that if you're going into the bottled water business, tap water is the best place to start. Why? Because it is already free of bacteria, iron, manganese and sulfur (unlike a typical well source). What opentappiness isn't telling you is that Dasani doesn't simply turn on the faucet straight into the bottle. They use an advanced reverse osmosis (RO) system to remove 99.99% of impurities. RO is our most advanced filtration method (it technically not even a filter but that is besides the point). Actually, what is the point?... here it is. I'm all for ditching bottled water because its a waste of fossil fuels to produce and distribute plastic bottled. And may prove to be unhealthy because of leaching chemicals from the plastic, and of course its expensive and empty bottles fill up land fills and...
But I'm here to say that Dasani is putting out a good product (Dasani: you can make your endorsement check out to Kyle Chapman). We can go green and shift demand from bottled to tap based on solid stats, not misleading and clever .org pages (aren't we give them shit for misleading us with pictures of mountains on their bottled water?)
You can buy RO systems to filter your own water at www.drink-your-tap-water.com.

How do chlorination systems work?

So I've finally got it figured out with chlorination systems. First, these types of systems aren't sold on my website (www.drink-your-tap-water.com) but its still water treatment so applied here.

A) The application: Chlorine is used in water treatment all over the world. Most commonly, we add chlorine to municipal water supplies to kill bacteria, viruses and other microorganisms. Yup, bleach dumped right into the supply. Sounds unhealthy, but its better than the bacteria. There are ways to take out the residual chlorine if it bothers you. You can treat just your drinking water by installing a drinking water filtration system like the ones on my website. Each system has at least carbon filtration which removes the chlorine, and the cheapest one is http://www.drink-your-tap-water.com/ecdrwasy.html.
Okay, the other uses for chlorine are as an oxidizing agent. It oxidizes sulfur gas (rotten egg smell), ferrous iron (do you have iron stains on your porcelain, but your water runs clear), and manganese (is your dishwasher brown or inside of your toilet tank brown/black?) The oxidization chemically changes the contaminants so they can precipitate or be filtered out.

B) The System: You'd install a chlorination system at the water's "point of entry" into the home, usually in the basement after the pressure tank. The first part is the solution tank which holds the chlorine (usually diluted with water). The second part is the chemical feed pump which releases proportioned amounts of the mixture into the water. The third and most important part is the retention tank. The retention tank can be as large as 120 gallons (5 ft tall!) and is used to provide contact time with the water and chlorine mixture to ensure effectiveness. Finally, the fourth and optional stage is a carbon filter that removes the residual chlorine.

Thats it, good luck!

Reverse Osmosis

Quick info post on reverse osmosis (RO). An RO unit typically mounts under your sink and comes with a designated faucet that delivers the filtered water. You'll know when you see one... it mounts to the side of the main faucet and is a much skinnier and often stylish version of the main faucet. Here's the deal, the main part of the unit is the TFC membrane. You can picture it like a long sheet of cellophane with millions of tiny holes in it. Then the sheet is rolled up and water is pushed through it. Everything that isn't water is stopped by the membrane. The filter is effective down to the molecular level, and is used to remove lots of impurities including flouride, salt and dissolved solids. Bacteria and viruses are also unable to pass through the filter although its not industry standard to make that claim. (FYI: its also not industry standard to call it a filter... or to call water "pure" but that is besides the point.) Anyway, the water is pushed through the membrane and held it a storage tank (also under your sink) until you need it. And the water that doesn't make it through the membrane? Unfortunately, that goes down the drain. The "reject" water is rightfully the main criticism of reverse osmosis systems. Depending on the quality of the raw water, a RO can reject 4 times the amount it provides for drinking.
What determines the wild price variations for units online? One is obviously style, brand and marketing. But the other is that an RO unit often comes with other filters. The units are sold by the number of "stages", up to 5 stages, and the "RO" is only one of them. The others are a combination of dirt and sediment filters, and carbon filters (the same stuff in a brita filter).
The quality of the water is unbeatable, and because you only use the water for drinking, the reject water doesn't typically add up to on a given day.
And of course, we sell them and other drinking water systems on our site (www.drink-your-tap-water.com).