Practical Tips for Cleaner, Safer Drinking Water at Home

In this post, we explain why we are so concerned about water purity, how our concerns initially arose and what do we do to solve the problem.

Tap water in the US is among the safest in the world, according to the CDC, but that doesn’t mean every tap is perfect: old pipes can add lead, and some areas have local problems. Your water utility has to publish a water quality report every year, so that’s the place to start.

Chlorine is added to kill germs, and a carbon filter takes out most of its taste and smell. Fluoride is added at 0.7 mg per liter in the US. A 2024 federal review linked levels above 1.5 mg per liter with lower IQ in children, but found too little data to judge the 0.7 level. If you’d rather not drink it, reverse osmosis removes most of it.

Is the water filtered well enough before it reaches our tap? Are the pipes completely free from corrosion?

We all seek ways to access clean, potable water that is free from both bacteria and chemicals. And it is because of such doubts that the bottled water industry is on the rise today.

Choosing the healthier bottled water.

In so many cases, buying water in plastic bottles is our only choice.

Those plastic bottles, however, are made out of PET plastic.

PET is generally considered safe for one-time use, but heat changes that. PET bottles release antimony, a metal used to make the plastic, faster when they get hot. In one Arizona study, levels stayed far below the EPA limit at room temperature, but at 149°F (65°C), a temperature a car or garage can reach in summer, the water could pass the limit in about 38 days.

Then there are the particles. A 2024 Columbia University study counted about 240,000 tiny plastic particles per liter of bottled water, and about 90% of them were nanoplastics, small enough to be missed by earlier tests.

Do not despair, though. Here is what you can do about it.

Go for the cheapest/most common brands.

Brands that sell fast are less likely to have sat on a shelf for months.

You want the water you are about to drink to have stayed the least amount of time in that bottle.

Also, a pricey spring water isn’t automatically cleaner. Several of the biggest brands are purified municipal water, and the label says so.

Buy from larger shops.

This is important, especially in summer.

Have you noticed that in many cases beverages are transported in open body trucks where the bottles are exposed to sunlight all day long? This is especially true for smaller shops that are not supplied with large amounts of merchandise.

Since heat can accelerate the aging of the bottle and help pollute the water inside, you would like to avoid that.

Large supermarkets tend to receive their stock during the night and in large quantities. Hence, the chance of your water to have stayed in the blazing sun for long is significantly lower.

Towards cleaner water at home

Of course, it is inevitable that while we are on the go, bottled water is in many cases the only source of clean water. Yet, we believe that we should find better sources of clean water in the environments where we spend most of the time: our home and workplaces.

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Apart from it potentially being unhealthy, buying water for the home is also uneconomical and unpractical.

The easiest solution is a pitcher with a water filter.

Most filter pitchers are made from BPA-free plastic. The bigger win is that your water no longer sits in a single-use bottle that may have spent days in a hot truck.

Our recommendation is to go for a glass one like the Soma Sustainable Carafe & Plant-Based Water Filter. The jug itself is glass, and the filter uses coconut-shell carbon in a casing made from plant-based plastic. Check which NSF standard your version is certified to, since the basic filter covers chlorine taste and odor.

Use a fixed system for best results

Pitchers may be the easiest way to filter your water but, as far as filtration goes, they are far from perfect.

Under-sink systems such as this Aquasana are usually certified to reduce far more contaminants than a pitcher. Compare the NSF certifications on the box. You can check our in-depth water filtration article for more info.

Clean water on the go

Water filtration systems have one main, obvious flaw. You cannot take it on the go. Yes, you can simply buy plastic water bottles but we suggest that you plan in advance.

What we can do is take glass bottles, filled with filtered water with us. It is better for so many reasons:

the water tastes clean, but filtering also removes the chlorine that keeps germs down, so fill the bottles fresh each day rather than keeping them for days;
the water is not stored in plastic;
it is more environmentally friendly;

The main drawback is that we need to have the bottles prepared. This means that we have to think ahead how much water will we need and actually carry them there and back again.

Honestly, in the beginning, we found these ‘complications’ a bit annoying. Yet it is the same as when we started to use reusable grocery bags. We get used to it. Today we hate buying plastic bags. And now, bottled water too.

Water at the workplace

Most offices today have water dispensers, which are ‘fed’ with water from plastic bottles. If that was not enough, have you noticed that many times these bottles are transported in open trucks, exposed to direct sunlight and heat?

What we would do to obtain the most toxin-free water at our workplace is the following:

bring water from home in glass bottles;
buy water in glass bottles;
a water dispenser, which filters tap water instead of using bottled water;
if you are in an office, where you can install a water filter, you can go for a faucet filter such as this one;
if you cannot, go for a glass filtration jug;
as a last resort, get a bottle with a built-in filter such as these;

What if the water at the tap is too dirty?

Carbon filters are good at removing chlorine taste and smell, and ones certified to NSF/ANSI 53 can also reduce health-related contaminants such as lead. Check the certification on the box for the exact list, because no carbon filter removes everything. However, if you believe that the quality of the tap water you are being supplied is very bad, then you might want to consider a reverse osmosis water filtration.

Reverse osmosis pushes water through a very fine membrane that removes most dissolved minerals, including calcium and magnesium, along with germs and many chemicals, though not all of them. If your water is poor, test it first so you know the system you buy is certified for what’s actually in it.

Because reverse osmosis strips out minerals, many systems (such as this one) add a final cartridge that puts some calcium and magnesium back.

The cost

The upfront price of a water filtration system may seem steep for many. Initially, it did for us too.

When we considered the capacity of the system we chose, however, it became clear that it is actually a lot more economical. For the ~$100, we got 8,000 liters/2,100 US gallons water filtration capacity. This amount is more than what we consume in a year and certainly a lot less expensive than buying it in bottles.

The large capacity also allows us to use the water in areas, where we wouldn’t have used it before such as our steam iron/coffee machine, for example. One caveat: a plain carbon filter doesn’t remove the calcium and magnesium that cause limescale, so appliances still need descaling. Only reverse osmosis or a water softener takes those out.

What is your preferred way to get the cleanest water possible?