Household Products That Pollute Your Water Supply

Some products you bring home can bring harmful effects on the environment, our water supply, and our family’s health.

Although there is no quick and easy way to stop water pollution completely, we can still do something to at least reduce it. One way to do that is through familiarizing ourselves with the different dangers lurking in our homes.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, some of the common household products contain pollutants and contaminants that can pollute our water supply and compromise our health. Here are some of the products to avoid:

Car Care Products

The most common products used when performing car maintenance such as motor oil, gasoline, brake fluid, and antifreeze can result in water contamination when disposed of improperly. When these liquids drip and seep into the ground, they can contaminate groundwater and adversely affect your household water supply.

Worse, these toxic liquids can run into municipal storm drains and contaminate local waterways as well. For an earth-friendly and safer alternative for washing your car, opt for biodegradable and petroleum-free products instead. If you own a well, make sure to wash your vehicle at least a hundred feet away from the wellhead.

Insecticides

An abundance of pests such as cockroaches, rodents, lice, mites, bedbugs, and the like can cause you to resort to the use of different pesticides and insecticides. However, the frequent use of these chemical pesticides can become a threat not only to your home and water supply but also to your overall health as well.

Before resorting to harmful insecticides and pesticides, you can prevent pests from lurking in your home by practicing some preventive measures. Keep pests away from your home by maintaining a clean home and sealing all entry points they can enter in. When all else fails, use environment-friendly natural pesticides instead.

Personal Products

The most common products used for maintaining physical hygiene such as soaps, body scrubs with microbeads, lotions, fragrances, and the like don’t only disrupt the body’s normal hormone production. Personal products such as these also often end up in our water supply, where they can harm humans and the wildlife.

Whenever possible, refrain from using personal cleansing products that contain microbeads. Because of their tiny size, they easily pass through sewage treatment plants and result in plastic particle water pollution. Besides eliminating the use of microbeads, only choose environment-friendly personal care products too.

Medications

When medications aren’t disposed of properly, they can contaminate your water supply. In fact, there have already been a lot of incidents where pharmaceuticals have been detected in the water supply of different U.S. states. One instance in NYC, 14 drugs have been found in their taps. These include sedatives, antibiotics, etc.

Instead of dumping or throwing unused or expired medications as you would your normal trash, turn them in at local pharmacies during Take Back Days. This way, they can be disposed of safely. You can also check out U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA)’s website for tips and guidelines on the safe disposal of medicines.

Put more thought into every product you’re bringing home. Take note of the above tips to prevent your household products from polluting your water supply.

Ensure the safety of your water. Have your home water supply checked and tested. Click here to claim your free water consultation. You can also contact 1-800-444-3563 for more information