Tap Water
Released on 07/11/2014
(contemplative piano music)
[Narrator] Tap water.
To the average American, it's as dull as, well, dish water
But even though you can't see it, there's a lot going on
when we dive deeper to see what's inside.
Like sulfates, which determine hardness,
and no, we're not talking ice cubes.
In this case, hardness refers to water
with a high mineral content,
like the stuff you might drink at a spa,
though it can be hard on plumbing,
leading to the formation of limescale
and the heartbreak of soap scum.
That's why water is typically softened
with ion exchange resins and polymers.
Or you can just wait for nature's own hydraulic cycle
to soften and purify H20 the old-fashioned way,
through evaporation, condensation,
and eventually, precipitation.
Hard or soft, though, tap water is typically
an invisible cocktail of whatever impurities
it's picked up along the way to your faucet.
For example, the Big Apple boasts about the quality
of its drinking water from upstate reservoirs,
but not so much about the potentially unhealthy
levels of lead that can leach into the liquid
as it travels through the pipes of the city's
ancient plumbing system.
And purification agents are often as bad
as the impurities that they treat, like chloramines,
which can damage red blood cells in high doses,
or trihalomethanes, which are meant to kill microorganisms,
but may damage your liver and DNA.
Don't worry, though.
Assuming there's no fracking nearby,
your tap water's probably safe and non-flammable,
especially if you catch the impurities in the pores
of the activated carbon or ion exchange resin
inside most commercial point of use filters.
And since healthy hydration is the key to long life,
we'll definitely drink to that.
(ethereal laser tone)
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