3 ms·

Beyond testing, I would recommend installing a reverse osmosis filter for your drinking water. I install RO filters for all my drinking water regardless if I am

Beyond testing, I would recommend installing a reverse osmosis filter for your drinking water. I install RO filters for all my drinking water regardless if I am in the Bay Area (The Bay Area can have some pretty freaky hot zones of contamination), well, city water, other parts of the country.

navi0 3y ago
Any concerns about the nanoplastics that commercial RO filters appear to create [0]? [0] https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2300582121 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2300582121
- infecto 3y ago
  Concerns yes but the better of two evils. I have not tested this consistently but I have leaned towards rather having the plastic contaminants from the RO system than whatever was upstream of the RO. It might be the wrong choice but after living the Bay Area I became too aware of how easy it is for contaminated water to show up from local hot spots. Edit: What I would add is I often ponder how much additional nanoplastics are getting added compared to what is being removed. I know some of the test suggest RO is adding more but I am not sure if it accounts for the complete life cycle in a bottling plant. For the near term I have just settled that nanoplastics are the lesser evil to me than PFAS and other chemicals within the water. It is scare mongering but I look at how that town in Oregon I believe had has wide spread PFAS contamination in ground water from the airport fire foam.
- tguvot 3y ago
  iirc, it's not clear what filters were used commercially, based on this article and how exactly it translated to residential system where filters working under much lower pressures
- Flozzin 3y ago
  I'm not too worried. They were looking at bottled water. My home system isn't the same one they were testing. It's similar, it might have similar problems. But I also don't know how often those filters are changed. My filters last 6 months, I would imagine it sheds most of the plastic right away, and you are suppose to drain the first couple gallons. The other components are rarely switched out, only when they break. Overall, I would think a home system sheds less. Also strung out through that entire article is the fact that all water has plastics. So at this point we are sorta screwed. Pick your poison, chemicals and plastic in your water, or mostly plastic...
xenadu02 3y ago
Where in the Bay Area have you seen contamination? Lots of cities in Alameda, San Mateo, and Santa Clara counties get their water from San Francisco Public Utilities, which owns large water rights both in the Bay Area and large watersheds in the Sierra Nevadas such as Hetch Hetchy. SFPUC water is so clean it is not legally required to be filtered though it does go through ozone treatment to eliminate microbes. Much of the Hetch Hechy watershed, especially the upper Tuolumne, is bare granite so the water doesn't even pick up sediment or surface contaminates. SFPUC enforced removal of all lead water lines in the 1980s so there shouldn't be that risk (which was a real one given some buildings date from the 1800s in SF). In short if you live in SF or one of the cities that buys their water from SF you shouldn't need reverse osmosis or any other filtering.
- infecto 3y ago
  Right, the source of the water is clean but the destinations are not. The Bay Area is dotted with a large number of super fund sites due to the historical chemical, semiconductor/circuit board industry. Even a larger number of sites that are not deemed superfund but are similar. All these electronic companies were more or less dumping their various solvents and de-greasers into the ground. Impacting both ground water and soil. Most of those chemicals penetrate both water pipes and in vapor form come up through the slab of the homes/offices built on top. Often as these business shutdown they built offices and homes on top of the property, for the ones that happened in the 70s there was no remediation until much later. For the ones that happened in the 90s-00s there was a level of remediation but I am still not trustworthy of it 1) lasting and 2) the developers doing the best work. So its not a "in short" story unless you are completely ignoring the large amounts of trichloroethylene contamination that is in still so much of the ground soil in the bay area. Sure if you live inside of SF proper you are probably fine in most of the residential areas as there was no manufacturing but areas like Bayview can be just as bad and you have the radioactive contamination on top of chemical. If you live anywhere in the south bay or east bay, you probably should at the very least get an idea of what was built near your office/home. Maybe test your water or just throw an RO on it. So many of these companies were dumping trichloroethylene and perchloroethylene in the south/east bay and we just built homes on top of them. They are indeed generally localized hot spots but when I realized how many were near me it opened my eyes. I remember years ago this was an issue at one of the google campus offices because it too had significant ground contamination. https://www.epa.gov/superfund-redevelopment/superfund-sites-reuse-california#cts https://www.epa.gov/superfund-redevelopment/superfund-sites-... - Even the homes built in later years have had problems with vapors contamination even though it was built with prevention in mind. You can see the other super fund sites there. I cannot find the map now but there are even a larger number of DTSC cleanup projects from the bay area. Kind of surprising someone would ask where is the contamination when it literally is dotting the whole bay area.

navi0 3y ago

Any concerns about the nanoplastics that commercial RO filters appear to create [0]? [0] https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2300582121 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2300582121

infecto 3y ago
Concerns yes but the better of two evils. I have not tested this consistently but I have leaned towards rather having the plastic contaminants from the RO system than whatever was upstream of the RO. It might be the wrong choice but after living the Bay Area I became too aware of how easy it is for contaminated water to show up from local hot spots. Edit: What I would add is I often ponder how much additional nanoplastics are getting added compared to what is being removed. I know some of the test suggest RO is adding more but I am not sure if it accounts for the complete life cycle in a bottling plant. For the near term I have just settled that nanoplastics are the lesser evil to me than PFAS and other chemicals within the water. It is scare mongering but I look at how that town in Oregon I believe had has wide spread PFAS contamination in ground water from the airport fire foam.
tguvot 3y ago
iirc, it's not clear what filters were used commercially, based on this article and how exactly it translated to residential system where filters working under much lower pressures
Flozzin 3y ago
I'm not too worried. They were looking at bottled water. My home system isn't the same one they were testing. It's similar, it might have similar problems. But I also don't know how often those filters are changed. My filters last 6 months, I would imagine it sheds most of the plastic right away, and you are suppose to drain the first couple gallons. The other components are rarely switched out, only when they break. Overall, I would think a home system sheds less. Also strung out through that entire article is the fact that all water has plastics. So at this point we are sorta screwed. Pick your poison, chemicals and plastic in your water, or mostly plastic...

xenadu02 3y ago

Where in the Bay Area have you seen contamination? Lots of cities in Alameda, San Mateo, and Santa Clara counties get their water from San Francisco Public Utilities, which owns large water rights both in the Bay Area and large watersheds in the Sierra Nevadas such as Hetch Hetchy. SFPUC water is so clean it is not legally required to be filtered though it does go through ozone treatment to eliminate microbes. Much of the Hetch Hechy watershed, especially the upper Tuolumne, is bare granite so the water doesn't even pick up sediment or surface contaminates. SFPUC enforced removal of all lead water lines in the 1980s so there shouldn't be that risk (which was a real one given some buildings date from the 1800s in SF). In short if you live in SF or one of the cities that buys their water from SF you shouldn't need reverse osmosis or any other filtering.

infecto 3y ago
Right, the source of the water is clean but the destinations are not. The Bay Area is dotted with a large number of super fund sites due to the historical chemical, semiconductor/circuit board industry. Even a larger number of sites that are not deemed superfund but are similar. All these electronic companies were more or less dumping their various solvents and de-greasers into the ground. Impacting both ground water and soil. Most of those chemicals penetrate both water pipes and in vapor form come up through the slab of the homes/offices built on top. Often as these business shutdown they built offices and homes on top of the property, for the ones that happened in the 70s there was no remediation until much later. For the ones that happened in the 90s-00s there was a level of remediation but I am still not trustworthy of it 1) lasting and 2) the developers doing the best work. So its not a "in short" story unless you are completely ignoring the large amounts of trichloroethylene contamination that is in still so much of the ground soil in the bay area. Sure if you live inside of SF proper you are probably fine in most of the residential areas as there was no manufacturing but areas like Bayview can be just as bad and you have the radioactive contamination on top of chemical. If you live anywhere in the south bay or east bay, you probably should at the very least get an idea of what was built near your office/home. Maybe test your water or just throw an RO on it. So many of these companies were dumping trichloroethylene and perchloroethylene in the south/east bay and we just built homes on top of them. They are indeed generally localized hot spots but when I realized how many were near me it opened my eyes. I remember years ago this was an issue at one of the google campus offices because it too had significant ground contamination. https://www.epa.gov/superfund-redevelopment/superfund-sites-reuse-california#cts https://www.epa.gov/superfund-redevelopment/superfund-sites-... - Even the homes built in later years have had problems with vapors contamination even though it was built with prevention in mind. You can see the other super fund sites there. I cannot find the map now but there are even a larger number of DTSC cleanup projects from the bay area. Kind of surprising someone would ask where is the contamination when it literally is dotting the whole bay area.