RO typically needs a post filter. Hopefully that doesn’t add any bad chemicals. But you need it as pure water is desperate to bind, so you can either bind it to something you choose, or bind it to whatever pipe work / tanks are beyond the filter. Also you might want a higher ph.
Maybe some disruption to make a nice looking, compact and cheap and zero install RO unit would be good and some subsidy for people without the means to buy one who live in risk areas. Plus subsidy for maintenance.
If the design is like a printer where you pull out and push in new cartridges and have warning lights it will make maintenance easy.
( https://www.geappliances.com/ge/water-filtration-systems.htm )
However RO is not water efficient, in the sense that only a fraction of water run over the RO membrane system is filtered, and otherwise inbound water goes on into the drain. You can hear this happening, and it's documented by GE, for example, as how the systems work. That makes me wonder if there are other systems with the characteristic that a higher % of ingested water ends up filtered as well as RO can.
The elevated pressure allows for more effective filtration and higher water recovery rates. By boosting the pressure, permeate pumps facilitate a greater volume of water passing through the semi-permeable membrane, resulting in increased production of purified water (permeate) and reduced reject water (brine). The heightened pressure helps overcome osmotic pressure and allows for a more thorough extraction of purified water from the feed stream.
They work pretty well to reduce waste but do add complexity to what is already a somewhat complicated device under the sink. They will also create bad TDS creep if used without an auto-shutoff valve installed in the RO.
Drinking water is probably such a small percent of overall water use that wasting even a multiple of it doesn’t amount to much anyway.
So filter away! I’ll worry about my r/o waste when people stop diverting rivers to grow almonds in the desert and not a second before.
I'm putting an RO unit in our kitchen to serve drinking and dishwasher needs. Our dishwasher needs descaling after a couple of months of normal use. Other uses (shower, toilets) aren't impacted by our super-hard water, so no RO for the whole house, mainly because of the water waste you note.
This is the exact line of thought the people who use the water want to encourage. They want you to worry about your water use so you don’t worry about theirs.
I was thinking more of using it typical gray water usage like watering plants.
Hot water is for external use only.
You could definitely use it as gray water but if you are filtering for contaminants, that water would have a higher concentration and if you were pushing it out as gray water, would those areas of the yard have higher levels potentially of contaminants?
What percentage of residential water goes to drinking water? I think of all water use in aggregate, in many places it’s already 90% is agriculture and 10% residential. And of residential you probably waste more water in a single toilet flush than you drink in an entire day.
I got over 99% reduction according to a cheap TDS meter at my condo in Phoenix with the 2 filter one. I can replace cartridges in seconds. I love that thing.
Zero install would probably suck as you’d have to fill tanks frequently (it rejects a good amount of water) and it would take up counter space but they do make em.
Honestly in most places you can buy the stuff for 25 cents a gallon from a machine, which is what I would do if I did not feel like installing
Been using them for a few years, water tastes great.
If it did cold water too would be awesome.
Question - how do you deal with countertops that have storage tanks made out of plastic?
Are there no concerns with microplastics at all with these units? I know the plastic is not the Polypropylene stuff, but still.
I heard some RO filters could pass microplastics. I think it would be cool to see if any of that pics up in a microscope. What size particles are people zeroing in on exactly?
Other than that just basic hand tools are involved. I would have no problem installing one in a rental but I’m also comfortable with plumbing. It’s definitely a job that seems a lot more intimidating than it is.
Is this common? I’m not sure I’ve ever come across this idea but it sounds pretty convenient.
Can be worthwhile depending on how long you plan to live in your apartment
I’m guessing RO is similarly bad (the membrane is made from one of the plastics in question).
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/scientists-find-about-a...
I did buy no-plastics Aarke glass/steel carbon filter pitcher for my drinking water.
It's hard to find water filtration without plastic involved, hopefully other options will come to the market, but their offering is pretty good so far.
What about distillation as a filtration method?
Are the micro/nano plastics filtered by distillation?
Interesting what method of filtration the chip factories use, as they need 100% pure water for the cpu making process.
For RO, a lot of the systems include a mineral cartridge.
I’m no expert on biology (I’m a chemist), but I drank quite a bit of DI water in grad school because the tap water was so gross.
Also, heavy water (D2O) tastes sweet. And it also won’t kill you when consumed, contrary to urban legend (at least not in quantities you can reasonably afford).
True. The saline solution used for blood injections has 9000 ppm of dissolved solids. Whereas tap water above even ~200 ppm tastes disgusting to me.
> I drank quite a bit of DI water in grad school
Nice... but I wonder if it's considered food-grade, and if there are any non-ionic / non-polar impurities in it.
> Also, heavy water (D2O) tastes sweet.
I find that plain distilled water tastes sweet too. I can't afford heavy water, but this YouTuber did: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXHVqId0MQc .
> it also won’t kill you when consumed
Deuterium oxide will kill you only after deuterium replaces a significant portion of all your body's hydrogen atoms, like maybe 50+%. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyK6kPi8k78
If you wonder about the crazy rise in colon cancer, I'd say doing that plus keeping a cellphone next to your ass 16 hours a day would definitely be more than enough in an animal model.
They do have plastic lids most often, but the lid doesn't have to touch food.
The plastic issue is also why I think people doing sous-vide are insane. You’re vacuum sealing meat into plastic and then giving it a nice long leeching in hot water. Sometimes with acidic foodstuffs!
https://flairespresso.com/products/espresso-makers/flair-cla...
There's a silicon gasket, and they offer a stainless steel plunger upgrade. There is some plastic in the portafilter that coffee will touch (unless you run in bottomless mode).
The bigger problem with most espresso makers (but not the model I linked) is that they use brass for the heating block / boiler and that leaches lead into the water.
This matters less in coffee shops (where they use up the water in the boiler in a few hours or maybe a day), but a lot more at home (where you might only refill the boiler once a week or even once a month).
With that said, I still put my cellphone in the front pocket every day, for most of the day.
It just seems really sad that society is moving away from "let's fix it for everyone" toward just giving up and saying "the only solution is everyone for themselves." Like, surely it would be much more efficient and cost-effective to improve water filtration at the municipal level rather than expecting everyone to buy and maintain their own individual filtration systems....
Just look at how Flint, MI was handled. It took years of nationwide outrage for the government to even admit that there was a problem.
Facts are that the US government is (now) intentionally and explicitly designed to remove all power from the people and give it to lobbyists and special interest groups. All levels of government explicitly ignore majority decisions and do whatever the fuck they want. Even votes barely matter when districts are gerrymandered so hard that all elections are predetermined. When that's not enough, we just go straight for bald faced voter suppression.
Things are not sunshine and roses. The US government is actively working against you.
This really resonates with where my thinking has gone. While I always try to be guided by science, my default these days is much closer to "assume it isn't safe" than "assume it is". I've got multiple chronic medical conditions that me both more susceptible to getting to sick, and more likely to have complications/have a slow recovery if I do. So for instance, I keep (medical grade) gloves at home and wear them when using any sort of cleaning chemicals. My skin is fragile anyway, and almost any sort of solvent (that isn't water) is at least somewhat bad for you, either short or long term.
Most of the risk is from the VOCs:
https://www.ewg.org/news-insights/news-release/2023/09/clean...
The best option is to turn on the bathroom fan and open a window, or use activated carbon.
The home distilled water tastes so good, much better than store bought that often sits in plastic jugs for weeks.
I do not add any additional minerals, the amount of magnesium, iron, and sodium in drinking water is only like ~5-10% of a person's daily requirement, and I get plenty of those from vegetables.
When the information began to surface I found it interesting the letters on public record going back to the 60’s with people warning that allowing this kind of dumping was a bad idea. Of course being the primary employer to the entire city, the economics won at the time. Since, the cost of cleanup and lawsuits to that company have been massive.