Reverse Osmosis Filter

Doesn't "GE Reverse Osmosis Water Filters"-sound like a good thing? If GE puts their name on a water filter, it ought to be good, right?

First some background:

You already know there's a problem with our water, or you wouldn't have been looking for information on water filters. One issue is the increasing contamination of our water supplies with pharmaceuticals. Prescription drugs and over-the-counter drugs are increasingly being found. We consume, then excrete (or discard without consuming) these substances, and they wind up in our rivers and ground water.

Since our water treatment plants, for the most part at least, weren't designed to filter out these chemicals, they end up in our tap water. Everything from antibiotics to pain killers like ibuprofen and codeine to hormones to sun screen to cancer chemotherapy drugs to anti-depressants-- and anything else you can think of can be found in our water.

Pharmaceuticals are only part of the problem. Studies have found that approximately 2100 chemicals can be found in our water as a result of the 80,000 or so chemicals used by industry, agriculture, and in our homes.

Many of these chemicals we know to be dangerous. Many of them we don't know about, and we especially don't know about the effects of drinking the combinations of chemicals.

So far, most of the pharmaceuticals have been found at very low level, perhaps too low to cause a problem... but we don't know for sure what the long term effects might be, especially on infants and children. Scientists differ, but many are very concerned. For example, what if a strain of bacteria becomes immune to the effect of a particular antibiotic?

OK, so we know there's a problem. How do we solve it?

The best answer is a home filtration unit, of which the GE reverse osmosis water filter is an example. Reverse osmosis filters are one of the two primary types sold in the U.S.

The GE reverse osmosis water filter is probably among the better ones of its type. One problem, though, with all reverse osmosis systems, is that they waste water. For each gallon of filtered water produced, some three to ten gallons is wasted and sent on down the drain, depending on the system, because of the need to wash the trapped chemicals and sediment off the membrane.

Because forcing the raw water through the very fine pores of the membrane used in these systems is a very slow process, reverse osmosis systems require storage tank, typically 2-5 gallons, which takes up a lot of room under the sink.

Even though the membrane has very small holes, most of the pharmaceuticals and other organic chemicals such as pesticides and weed killers in our water are smaller than those holes, so they flow right on through the membrane. To catch them, a carbon filter is used.

So why complicate things? Why not just use a carbon filtration system in the first place?

Reverse osmosis systems also cost more to operate. They typically produce drinking water at a cost of $.25 per gallon or more. By comparison, the best-selling carbon filtration system, the one I installed in my home, does it at a little less than $.10 per gallon.

It should also be noted that any filtration system is much better for the environment than buying bottled water. Sixty million bottles water bottles a day are manufactured in the U.S., and most of them end up in landfills. That's a lot of plastic in the landfills, and a lot of petroleum used to manufacture the bottles in the first place, not to mention the transporting of all those bottles. Huge environmental impact-do your part to not participate!

For my money, the carbon filtration, or "Carbon Block" filter unit is the best answer to contaminated water. They're the least expensive type to operate, don't waste water, and do a better job of filtering out the bad stuff.