Our body consists largely of water. That’s why it is vital to drink enough water every day. Dutch tap water is considered one of the cleanest waters in the world. Yet our drinking water also contains quite a bit of pollution. After water purification companies have filtered the water, about 20% of pollution remains in the water. But what kind of pollution is it exactly?
Dutch drinking water is mainly extracted from groundwater and surface water. This water comes into contact with all kinds of substances. Even after purification, these substances partly remain in the water. In addition, drinking water is often also contaminated by our water pipes. Many water pipes are made of lead (when the building is from before 1960). These lead particles end up in our water and can be harmful to our health.
The groundwater quality in the Netherlands is deteriorating. That’s because contamination is taking place at increasing depths. In addition, more pollutants are found in the groundwater. As a result, the quality of the groundwater is slowly deteriorating further and further. In particular, substances such as nitrate, pesticides, old soil contamination and salinization can be found in the groundwater. Traces of industrial substances and (animal) medicines are also increasingly found in groundwater. In addition, new activities in the subsurface pose a risk to the groundwater stock. Think of geothermal energy or the storage of heat and cold.
More and more pollutants are also found in surface water. In particular salinization occurs pesticides and pharmaceutical i found in the surface water. Microplastics, nanomaterials and antibiotic resistance in particular can pose a threat to our health. We also have to deal with climate change. This, too, does not benefit the quality of the surface water. For example, threats such as more salinization and less dilution of pollution from lower river discharges will increase in the future.
It is often thought that bottled water from the supermarket is a healthy alternative to tap water. Nothing could be further from the truth, the water in these bottles is also polluted. Mostly by microplastics. In addition, bottles of water cause more pollution of the planet by the plastic that ends up in the environment. That does not solve anything and the problem will only get worse. Plastic water bottles are one of the biggest environmental pollutants.
A more sustainable and healthier solution is ZeroWater. This allows you to filter the tap water using a
