This report came in for me this morning. The heading looked hopeful but the content was discouraging, to say the least.
It discusses a study where scientists have discovered that tap water - meaning water with dissolved minerals in it - stops plastic kettles from releasing plastics into the water they boil.
Sounds OK, right? Not.
Firstly, I’ve always wondered about plastic kettles.
Like most people I thought “Ah well, they must be OK. Why would anyone sell them if they leached plastics into your cup of tea?”
But this report is based on the fact that plastic kettles DO leach plastic! And then.. as if it’s really OK, they conclude that if you use water from your tap, the dissolved minerals in the tap water will prevent the plastic leaching.
So to stop ingesting bits of your kettle, you should use chlorinated, fluoridated tap water laden with disinfection byproducts and even heavy metals. Is that the best you can do?
There’s another point.
Many people have opted for reverse osmosis systems. These remove everything from the water they filter, which seems reasonable if that’s what you want. But now this means that if you brew a cuppa with RO water, you get a dose of plastics in your tea!
Luckily there is a way around this dilemma. Use a water filter that removes the chlorine, the chloramines, the disinfectant byproducts, the fluoride, but leaves the dissolved minerals. Here it is.
