r/drinkingwater

this man insta handle - @ harjeetnath,

if you see this , if possible show this man support & love too. These innovation as good as they are , they never reach lime light or attention they deserve.

Had this company come around and they took samples and gave me these readings on the right hand column.

Strongly recommend that I need a filter unit.

What do you guys think of these reading for the water? Is this bad?

I've been reading the primary literature on microplastics for a while, and the findings that stuck with me are mostly the ones that contradict the obvious advice. Four of them:

1. Carbon-only water filter pitchers can make things worse. A 2023 study tested pour-through pitchers and found the device using only granular activated carbon and ion-exchange resin had more microplastic fragments in its output than in the tap water going in — the media appears to shed its own particles. Pitchers with an added microfiltration membrane removed 94–100% of PET fragments. Carbon adsorption targets dissolved chemicals; it has no mechanism for catching suspended particles. (Cherian et al., 2023, Polymers)

2. Boiling only works if your water is hard. Boiling traps particles in the limescale that forms — up to 80–90% removal in hard water. In soft water, where little scale forms, it drops to roughly 25% or less. The plastic isn't destroyed either; it's bound into the scale, so you have to decant off it. (Yu et al., 2024, ES&T Letters)

3. "BPA-free" isn't a safety category. The label addresses one chemical. Testing of BPA-free products found many still released hormonally active compounds, and heat made it substantially worse. Glass and stainless sidestep the question entirely.

4. Your car is worse than your house. A 2025 analysis measured a median of 528 microplastic particles per cubic metre indoors at home — and 2,238 in car cabins. Changing the cabin air filter on schedule is probably the highest-yield filter change most people never make. (Yakovenko et al., 2025, PLOS ONE)

The through-line is that most microplastic advice gets repeated without anyone checking what the paper actually said, and the checkable version is usually more interesting than the headline.

I write about this at microplasticdefense.com — every claim links to the primary study, and where a finding has been disputed we link the disagreement too. There's also a free one-page printable summarising the practical stuff, no affiliate links in it, free to print or share.

Disclosure: the site has product review pages with Amazon affiliate links, which is how it funds itself. The guides don't, and our review of consumer microplastic test kits says not to buy them — they can't reliably identify plastic in water or air.

Happy to dig up sources for anything else people are curious about.

made this video to show interns when all the clarifiers where full with water so they could see how it operates

Bought this $100 water pitcher to remove fluoride from my city tap water. The pitcher has TERRIBLE design. You can tell they did minimal testing while developing it.

When filled completely, the pitcher is too heavy. You have to hold it with two hands to get it out of the fridge. It has little ridged “feet” that have left indent marks on my wood countertops due to the heaviness of the pitcher, so we put little furniture cushion stickers on the bottom. The reservoir sometimes falls out when pouring. When this happens and even when it doesn’t happen, water spills out erratically and gets everywhere. When you replace the filter, you have go through this process of filling up a provided bag full of water, attaching it to the filter, and squeezing it out so that water flows out more easily. You have to do this twice. If you don’t do it right, it takes forever for water to filter through and you have to redo the process.

The worst part is that the lid is glued directly to the top of the reservoir, so it’s impossible to get it thoroughly cleaned. Now there is unremovable mold in the seams, making the pitcher feel filthy.

There are multiple reviews on Trust Pilot talking about the mold, so the company should know. Customers have also said that they’ve encountered rude customer service and that they have refused to replace the pitcher like the warranty should cover. In my opinion, I wouldn’t even go through the hassle of getting it replaced because the mold will almost certainly appear again. Unlike elsewhere on the internet, the company has a “Poor” score there of 2.4 out of 5.

This pitcher has two main jobs: to pour and to provide clean, filtered water. It can’t do either well if it leaks when pouring and has mold in it. Total waste of money.

I got an Epic Water pitcher and it’s much more superior. The pitcher is large, but not too heavy. I can take out of the fridge with one hand. The lid detaches for cleaning. It has a hinged lid on the spout which controls the output of water when pouring. It has yet to spill. It doesn’t have a weird water bag squeezing process for filter replacement. You just have run water through the reservoir twice. It even has a small mechanism on the lid for a 90 day countdown to show when to replace the filter. And it’s cheaper. Yeeeeesh

I opened an RO membrane that had been used for only about 3 months.
The end of the membrane has a lot of brown/dark specks and discoloration, especially around the outer edge. However, after unrolling it, the membrane sheets inside look relatively clean.
I included another photo I found of an RO membrane that someone said had been used for about 7 years. Surprisingly, that membrane looks much cleaner on the end surface than mine.
I understand that different source water and usage conditions can make membranes look different, so I’m not saying the comparison proves anything.
My questions are:
Is this amount of buildup normal after only 3 months?
What could the brown/black deposits be — sediment, iron/manganese, organic matter, biofilm, carbon fines, or something else?
Why would the exposed end look dirty while the membrane sheets inside still look relatively clean?
Would you recommend having the deposits or the source water professionally tested?
I’d especially appreciate input from anyone who works with RO systems or has opened used RO membranes before.