GLOBAL CHALLENGES

Technology Promises to Make Tap Water Cleaner as Green Consumers Flee Bottled Water

Dennis McCafferty | Date: 01-07-10 | Comments

A number of new tech advancements are bringing clean tap water to the public, including one that not only lets consumers purify their own water but evaluates how pure the water is and others that use the moisture that's in the air for clean water.

For a relatively bland product�by definition, it should have no taste, be colorless and otherwise lack distinguishing characteristics�water sure can stir up controversy. Especially when it comes to the constant debates over the merits of bottled verses tap.

The bottled water industry is frequently criticized for being an environmental polluter�what with all the discarded plastic bottles, often made from petroleum. A 2001 report indicated that about 1.5 million tons of plastic is expended in the bottling of 89 billion liters of water each year. Then, there's the debate over whether the products themselves are really as "pure" as billed.

Seeking alternatives, researchers are constantly trying to come up with ways to make tap water cleaner and healthier. That's easier said than done, as one research finding indicates that there are more than 2,100 known drinking water contaminants in what flows from the tap.

Fortunately, progress is being made on all fronts.

Technological developments have improved the recycling rates of water bottles to more than 30 percent now, up by nearly one-third over the 2007 rate, according to the International Bottled Water Association. Since 2000, the average weight per bottle has declined by nearly 27 percent, to 13.83 grams. And Nestle Waters is coming out with a bottle that contains 25 percent less plastic than the current version, weighing an average of 9.3 grams. It's now rolling the product out in its Poland Spring, Arrowhead, Nestle Pure Life and other brands. The company also plans to develop a bottle made entirely of recycled materials by 2020.

Certainly, such progress means that Americans can be somewhat relieved of the "guilt factor" when it comes to buying a bottle at the local convenience store. But many still seek filtered tap water products as the ultimate "earth-friendly" solution. The challenge is coming up with technologies that effectively remove trace amounts of heavy metals like lead, mercury and aluminum, as well as carcinogens like chlorine and fluorine�not to mention nasty bugs like E. coli.

Fortunately, there have been entrepreneurial tech advancements here too: A product called ZeroWater allows consumers to not only purify their own water through a filtration system, but evaluate how pure it is. It provides what it calls a TDS Meter (which stands for "total dissolved solids") that gives a quality rating. It works for bottled, tap and well water. It also provides a recycling program for its filters.

Getting clean water from the air is another area of continued interest. An invention called EcoloBlue uses a multi-staged filtration system in which air passes through an air filter and is then condensed to extract water particles, which are sterilized by a nanometer. The sterile water is transferred to a storage tank before passing through a series of filters. After a three-stage filtering process by carbon, RO membrane and bio-ceramic filters, the water passes through a UV light system and is transferred into a cold or hot tank. The hot water cycle is complete, and the cold water will pass through one more light system before completing the purification process.

Another similar solution, Dewpointe, also uses the moisture that's in the air for clean water. With an estimated 3.1 quadrillion gallons of free water in the atmosphere, the Dewpointe water-generation system extracts this moisture for a reported 99.99 percent pure water product.