Hey there!
I know you can’t drink tap water and that you should boil and filter it to get rid of the bad bacteria. But what about heavy metals? I heard they come from the gysers and that you should use reverse odmosis machines to get rid of them! Is this so?
Thanks
Cath
It all depends on what we are talking about. Some heavy metals are vital to our survival; others, like lead and mercury, are just bad. Reverse osmosis can be used to obtain “clean” water (e.g., deionised water), but the effectiveness of the technology is still dependent on the semipermeable membrane used and the pressure involved.
I would not recommend RO, because it ends up filtering out all minerals, even the essential ones. Also, it is not environmentally friendly.
“An environmental disadvantage to reverse osmosis systems (besides the toxic manufacture and ultimate disposal problems of all the plastic) is that they waste a lot of water. Only 10 to 15 percent of the water passing through the system goes through the membrane; the rest goes down the drain. About 20 gallons each day is wasted by being flushed through the unit, even if you don’t use any water. Some newer types recycle the waste water, which is a good idea even if you live in an area where there is plenty of water.”
I kept staring at this headline of this thread and envisioning Black Sabbath playing in my kitchen sink.
Thought I’d share.
[quote=“Cath”]Hey there!
I know you can’t drink tap water and that you should boil and filter it to get rid of the bad bacteria. But what about heavy metals? I heard they come from the gysers and that you should use reverse odmosis machines to get rid of them! Is this so?
Thanks
Cath[/quote]
It’s true that you should use a reverse osmosis unit. Actually, water at the source in Taiwan is pretty good. The problem comes from the antiquated pipes that the water needs to flow through before it reaches your taps. But I would still boil it even after it’s been through the filter.
no bacteria will get through an RO unit, unless the membrane is damaged. there is absolutely no poiint in boiling water from an RO system. RO systems provide water that is so pure it almost fails to conduct electricity. (resistivity of 18 MOhm.cm for the keen beans out there)
very few heavy metals are important in your diet, as trace elements or whatever. trace amounts of vanadium, manganese and molybdenum are necessary but you’ll get most of these from vegetables…
heavy metals are generally poisons that compete with calcium, magnesium, zinc and other much more important metals. almost all are divalent ions (2+ charge) that are absorbed erroneously by the same mechanisms your body uses to absorb calcium, magnesium and zinc from the environment. they are incorporated into things like bone and teeth, and various enzymes, instead of the zinc or mag or calcium, and stop those enzymes from working properly.
you should really try hard to get eliminate all sources of lead, cadmium, arsenic, mercury, and so on from your diet. RO is the best way as it uses far less energy than distilling water, though it does waste about 85-90% of the water as bypass. but who cares in Taiwan? there’s so much water here its not an issue. you can actually trap the bypass water and use it for flushing and gardens if you want.
boiling DOES NOT remove any metal contamination.
Awesome info, Urodacus! Thanks!
Cath - hope you remember the invite!
Still have B’s umbrella.
[quote=“urodacus”]no bacteria will get through an RO unit, unless the membrane is damaged. there is absolutely no poiint in boiling water from an RO system. RO systems provide water that is so pure it almost fails to conduct electricity. (resistivity of 18 MOhm.cm for the keen beans out there)
very few heavy metals are important in your diet, as trace elements or whatever. trace amounts of vanadium, manganese and molybdenum are necessary but you’ll get most of these from vegetables…
heavy metals are generally poisons that compete with calcium, magnesium, zinc and other much more important metals. almost all are divalent ions (2+ charge) that are absorbed erroneously by the same mechanisms your body uses to absorb calcium, magnesium and zinc from the environment. they are incorporated into things like bone and teeth, and various enzymes, instead of the zinc or mag or calcium, and stop those enzymes from working properly.
you should really try hard to get eliminate all sources of lead, cadmium, arsenic, mercury, and so on from your diet. RO is the best way as it uses far less energy than distilling water, though it does waste about 85-90% of the water as bypass. but who cares in Taiwan? there’s so much water here its not an issue. you can actually trap the bypass water and use it for flushing and gardens if you want.
boiling DOES NOT remove any metal contamination.[/quote]
Interesting but it seems you haven’t been in Taiwan very long if you think there is an abundance of water. We had droughts for several years in a row a few years back with the resulting water shortages and rationing. Taiwan actually has a fairly serious water problem because our water comes from reservoirs which can only properly be filled during the rainy season. A year without typhoons can have a serious impact on water supplies. There is also the problem of silt filling the reservoirs such as we have seen in Taoyuan in the past few years.
AIT is always suggesting the government get a serious water use policy into effect which would include raising the price to encourage less waste.
BTW, is it true that we sweat out heavy metals?
We also have a government that doesn’t bother dredging the reservoirs, reducing their capacity.
Mucha man: I come from Australia. In comparison, all countries bar perhaps places like Sudan and Niger have an abundance of water. Some towns in my state have not had any rain for five years.
but I agree: water is not a resource to be wasted without thought. RO only wastes 90% of what you use. Seeing as I use less than 1 liter of drinking water a day, that’s not too bad. (it’s like one extra toilet flush, and seeing as i save water by not flushing pee every time, that’s a net saving).
And yes, you can sweat out all metals in your circulation, but as the lead etc is incorporated in your bones and teeth and more importantly, in many neuron enzymes, that bound-up fraction of the heavy metals is not available to your bloodstream to be sweated out. and the heavy metals are not preferentially sweated out, they are only sweated out in the proportion that they are available. so the rate is very low, and is not to be relied on to rid your body of them. It’s also compounded by the fact that you may keep absorbing more than you sweat out.
So then sauna treatments to detoxify are bogus?
Curious thing about Taiwan though is the low concentration of heavy metals in people’s bodies. The EPA did a nationwide study two years ago and even they were surprised by the findings. I always wondered if it has somethign to do with the humid climate and we all sweated everything out in summer. But your post would suggest not.
Well, i have no hard evidence of this either way… I can only tell you the mechanics of the situation, any more would actually mean doing some research! Sauna treatments may make you sweat out much more than you put in, so in the long run they should work. it is very hard to eliminate heavy metals once in you, but not impossible… after all, the amount left in you is a balancing act of the rate of entry and the rate of exit.
Conceivably, people here are less affected than generally thought because the efforts to remove heavy metals from the environment (food, water, air) have been successful. that’s why lead free petrol is now the only kind available. much industrial pollution of rivers has now been prevented. groundwater supplies may flush much faster here than elsewhere due to high bursts of rainfall, but the fine particles of silty soil hold tightly onto heavy metal ions and don’t like to be flushed. see
http://soc.thu.edu.tw/2006TSAconference/_notes/2006TSApaper/3-10.pdf
we know that London for example had high heavy metal content in the air from burning coal, but that fell off quickly when burning coal for heating was phased out with the Clean Air Act. coal fired power stations are now required to scrub their output. hopefully this has reduced the overall burden, but removal of heavy metal pollution will take centuries.