Only 0.3% of the US population do not have access to piped water, yet the majority of the people living in the US prefer bottled or filtered drinking water. This piece of information was revealed as one of the results of a 2019 nationwide survey. About 91% of the survey respondents said safety and taste issues are the top reasons why they prefer not to drink unfiltered tap water. Yet before rushing to buy a water filtration system, find out what the CDC recommends as steps to take when choosing a brand and model.

Choosing Between Store-Bought Bottled Water or Home Filtered Water

The costs of bottled drinking water can be a limiting factor to the amount of water being consumed daily by members of the household. As an alternative, most consumers turn to affordable home water filtration systems as a cost-efficient alternative to buying bottled drinking water.

Still, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) gives consumers advice that every brand offers different types of units to install as water filter. The CDC reminds consumers that there is no single brand or model capable of giving 100% assurance of efficiently removing all water contaminants.

What’s important is to find out what a particular type can do because not all water filtration systems utilize the same technology.

What Exactly is Water Filtration

First step is to have a clear understanding of what water filtration is and what a system can do to improve the quality of your tap water.

Water Filtration – refers to a set of procedures performed to reduce, if not totally remove particulate matters, suspended particles, algae, fungi parasites, bacteria and viruses that may be present in the water coming out of a faucet. The filtration system is also capable of eliminating undesirable chemicals and biological pollutants coming from a contaminated water source. A water filtration system must, for all intents and purposes, be able to make tap water clean and safe to drink. However, it’s also important that a filtration system does not filter out the healthy minerals that make water sustenance part of a healthy diet.

Secondly, since filtration systems come in different sizes, forms, features and of course, prices, carefully look over the information stated in the labels. The economical, less costly types are the filter pitchers and faucet-mounted or end-of-tap filters. The more complex systems are the built-in types that can be integrated into the faucet, or set up as on-counter filters or under-sink filters. The most sophisticated and expensive is the filtration system comprising a set of built-in treatment units for the entire house.

The third step is to check the label to determine if the water filter is certified by the National Sanitation Foundation (NSF). A basic NSF certification is the NSF-61. This certification can give users peace of mind in knowing that the water filtration system certified meets the standard features and procedures in producing tap water that is safe for citizens to drink.

Labels indicate the kind of contaminants the manufacturer claims are the water pollutants and adulterants removed by its proprietary filtration technology. This can be verified via the NSF database, which provides detailed information about the contaminants removed by a particular water filter model.

Case Example of a Water Filtration System and the Related Claims by the Manufacturer

As an example, allow us to cite the Clearly Filtered Water Pitcher as an example of a basic water filtration unit, which the manufacturer claims is different. Mainly because it uses a proprietary technology called Affinity® Filtration, which Clearly filtered claims is capable of removing more than 220 of the most common contaminants, heavy metals, and harmful chemicals generally found in tap water, To further attest to the validity of its claims, Clearly Filtered also provides a complete list of the contaminants removed by its filtration technology as exhibited in the latest Lab Results report.