Water expert warns Americans about ‘chemical – Business News
Amid insufferable temperatures and seasonal adjustments, kids and adults ought to increase their water consumption, however are suggested to keep away from unfiltered faucet and bottled water as a lot as potential, based on a water technology and sustainability expert.
“The whole reason our company exists is because we have a fundamental crisis in our drinking water in the United States today, and not a lot of people are talking about it,” Rich “Raz” Razgaitis, CEO of FloWater, instructed FOX Business.
Raz, previously of Fortune 500 corporations and international pharmaceutical leaders Johnson & Johnson and Eli Lilly, co-founded FloWater 12 years in the past to revive America’s ingesting water.
America’s water infrastructure is underfunded and outdated. In 2023, the EPA decided that the U.S.’s water infrastructure requires $625 billion over a 20-year period to handle the problems, based on the Infrastructure Report Card.
“From the governmental side, whether it’s federal or municipal, nobody can solve our infrastructure issues in one or two terms,” Raz mentioned. “So, it’s a hot potato. Nobody wants to talk about this and amplify what the problem is.”
“A lot of companies are profiting off of a really broken water infrastructure.”
Amid insufferable temperatures and seasonal adjustments, kids and adults ought to increase their water consumption, however are suggested to keep away from unfiltered faucet and bottled water, based on consultants. MediaNews Group by way of Getty Images
Raz instructed FOX Business that shopper packaged items corporations, particularly huge beverage manufacturers and vitality drink corporations, are capitalizing on impressionable younger adults and combating for youths’ mindshare.
“I got personally passionate about this, watching my daughters at a young age get, what I would say is, programmed in the same way that I got programmed growing up by becoming really fixated on sugary, caffeinated drinks,” Raz mentioned.
“This is a real problem because it creates lifelong behaviors, addictions, and dependencies that ultimately lead to cataclysmic choices downstream.”
America’s water infrastructure is underfunded and outdated, based on reviews. Bloomberg by way of Getty Images
Raz mentioned selecting between unfiltered faucet water and bottled ingesting water is like evaluating cigarettes.
“Seventy thousand to eighty thousand chemicals have been submitted to the toxicology division of the EPA over the last many decades,” Raz mentioned. “There are an estimated 50,000 chemicals in use in the United States today. Those chemicals are used for things like pharmaceutical manufacturing, textile manufacturing, agricultural use, and ultimately, fewer than 100 of those roughly 50,000 chemicals in use in the United States today are regulated by the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974, which has hardly been updated since 1974.”
“We’re literally drinking a chemical cocktail,” Raz mentioned.
“From the governmental side, whether it’s federal or municipal, nobody can solve our infrastructure issues in one or two terms,” Rich “Raz” Razgaitis, CEO of FloWater, mentioned. “So, it’s a hot potato. Nobody wants to talk about this and amplify what the problem is.” luchschenF – stock.adobe.com
In abstract, the SDWA was established to defend water high quality from common contaminants and was later amended and reauthorized in 1986 and 1996, based on the EPA web site.
Raz, nevertheless, instructed FOX Business that roughly 70% of Americans don’t like or don’t trust faucet water, in order that they resort to bottled water, which is riddled with micro- and nanoplastic contaminants.
“Our job is really to stop that cycle,” he mentioned of FloWater.
FloWater, a purified ingesting water system, is used to boost each the style and results of ingesting water. Raz based the model to get adults and youngsters to fall in love with water again.
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“The way that we do that is by taking the water that municipal systems deliver, which they do the best job they can possibly do given the decades of contamination that have happened in our drinking water,” Raz mentioned. “Then, we add a purification device onto that that radically changes that tap water. It reduces the bad stuff and puts good things in there, delivering what people say is the world’s best-tasting water.”
While Raz encourages places of work, gyms, college districts, and different public locations to offer people with FloWater systems that price round $5 per 30 days, he isn’t explicit about what system is used, as long as one is obtainable to shoppers.
The FloWater web site affords a water evaluation function for all zip codes within the U.S. to find out what precisely is of their faucet water.
Raz mentioned that roughly 70% of Americans don’t like or don’t trust faucet water, in order that they resort to bottled water, which is riddled with micro- and nanoplastic contaminants. NurPhoto by way of Getty Images
“There are over 200 million Americans estimated to be drinking water from the tap with PFAS in it,” Raz mentioned.
PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are extensively used, long-lasting chemical compounds, elements of which break down very slowly over time. There are 1000’s of them present in industrial, shopper and industrial merchandise, based on the EPA web site.
“Over 56% of Americans have been drinking tap water with lead in it,” Raz mentioned.
He added that microplastics present in bottled water turn into nanoplastics as a result of they don’t biodegrade, and people eat about one credit card’s value of plastic each week.
Raz continued to say that shopper packaged items corporations, particularly huge beverage manufacturers and vitality drink corporations, are capitalizing on impressionable younger adults and combating for youths’ mindshare. Education Images/Universal Images Group by way of Getty Images
“The people that don’t like that problem solved are people selling consumer packaged goods that are wrapped in plastic and distributed,” Raz instructed FOX Business.
For owners who don’t have entry to FloWater, Raz recommends a system with a triple filter and reverse osmosis, a membrane that’s impervious to contaminants and removes them down to .0001 microns, based on Raz.
Homeowners ought to have a system with a mineral filter that features calcium, potassium, magnesium and sodium for the countertop or underneath the sink.
Systems for the home can price anyplace from a few hundred {dollars} to $2,000.
