In many locations municipal tap water is drawn from rivers. The water is treated in a basic way (flocculation and sand filters) on a very large scale. It is chlorinated and pumped into households, business and industrial locations. The resultant wastewater is treated and released back into the river. It flows downstream where the next town draws it in, treats it and serves it to us.

5 reasons to use R/O water for drinking, pets and Cannabis/Veggies. Some of these could be debateable but I would rather use very clean water whenever possible for myself, my pets and my crops!

1. Chlorine and chlorine gas, bad for you (carcinogenic?) and certainly for your microherd if growing organic in soil. It evaporates if the water is left standing. Activated carbon filters will strip chlorine out (brita filters etc). Chlorine damages R/O membranes so it must be filtered out first.

2. Chloramines are bad for you (carcinogenic?). They do not evaporate. If you run them through activated carbon you strip off the chlorine and leave behind ammonia, which is no good either. R/O removes the ammonia.

3. Heavy metals (poisonous/carconogenic?). This is one of the things municipal water actually tests for so levels in tap water should be low lol. However, R/O will easily reduce these dangerous elements further.

4. Viruses, Bacteria and Parasites. Chlorine does a decent job killing most bacteria but intestinal parasites can survive in tap water. Some intestinal viruses can as well. Norovirus has been shown to survive well beyond typical chlorination levels. My advice, don't eat where you sh*t (unless you are using R/O filtration) The R/O membrane will stop bacteria and parasites. It will stop viruses as well, however occasionally there are imperfections in the membrane structure that can allow viruses to pass. To fully disinfect the water for drinking a UV-C filter can be added to an R/O system ($65 is the cheapest I have seen).

5. Pharamceuticals/emerging contaminants. We have health care fever in this country. Birth control tablets are very commonly used (I'm not complaining). Hundreds of pharmaceutical compounds survive the waste treatment process and are expelled back into the watersystem. Some scientists warn that small amounts of compounds can interact and have surprising effects (synergy), especially affecting hormonal systems. I don't want to play that game, I'll take the advice from #4.

You can get R/O +UVC water from the Culligan machine at Walmart 37 cents per gal fill your own jugs. Quality undersink R/O systems are available on eBay for ~$150 add UVC for ~$65. I have never sat down to work it out but I wonder if I spend more $$ on water than I do on nutes?