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Water Filtration Facts

You've probably been told that you need to drink between six and eight glasses of water a day, but you'd better make sure that you're drinking water which has undergone some kind of filtration process. Otherwise, you're putting chemicals into your body that don't belong there, according to the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit agency based out of Washington, D.C.

  1. History

    • The origin of water filtration dates back to ancient Egypt. As early as 2000 B.C., water was passed through a cloth sleeve, which would filter out some of the larger impurities, before drinking. The Egyptians also used a kind of clarifying device, which would allow smaller sediment to settle to the bottom of a large urn, while several siphons removed the upper layer of clear water.

    First Filtration Method

    • According to the National Environmental Services Center at West Virginia University, in early 1700, a French scientist named La Hire went before the French Academy of Sciences to demonstrate a method of water filtration that could be easily implemented. He placed a large vessel at an elevated level. A sand filter in the vessel allowed water to pass through and emerge from the bottom purified. The first municipal water filtration system was installed not in France, however, but in Paisley, Scotland.

    Modern Filtration

    • Modern filtration methods consist of a series of carbon filters through which water passes. The water then moves through several other membranes until the final product is free from contaminants (while still containing beneficial minerals).

    Environmental Effects

    • Using filtered water instead of bottled water will vastly cut down on the amount of plastic needed in the bottled water industry. In a 2001 report produced by the World Wide Fund for Nature, approximately 1.5 tons of plastic are used annually to produce the 89 billion liters of water bottled.

    Bottled Water

    • In his 1997 best-seller "8 Weeks to Optimum Health," author Andrew Weil explained that bottled water is not the best solution available for a healthy lifestyle. He called it a "temporary solution at best," citing an Environmental Protection Agency inspection of 25 bottling plants, which uncovered problems at each location. He concluded that water filtration on a local level is far superior.

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