Photo Credit: Katherine Johnson- www.flickr.com

In the wake of the contamination that tainted Jerusalem’s drinking water supply this summer, I set out to find a home drinking water filtration system that would help ensure that my family was always drinking the cleanest water possible.

Before explaining the different options for water filtration systems available in Israel, it’s important to first understand why a filter is needed in the first place.

When you turn on the faucet in Israel, water flows from one of three main sources: the Kinneret (30%), underground aquifers (36%), or natural springs (34%). The water is pumped to a treatment facility where it is filtered to remove various physical contaminates (e.g., lead) and disinfected with chemicals like chlorine to kill pathogens, like e-coli.

The national water carrier, Mekorot, does its best to ensure that safe water flows continuously. But the system is inherently imperfect all over the world.

When the water leaves the treatment facility, it must meet strict international health standards. That doesn’t necessarily mean it is free of all contaminants. In fact, the law allows for some “safe” levels of toxins, like mercury, in our drinking water. These levels have been regularly adjusted downwards over the years as science gains a deeper appreciation of the true toxicity of chemical contaminants. 

Furthermore, accidents can happen at the treatment facility, or along the way to your kitchen sink. That’s exactly what occurred recently in Jerusalem when a worker ruptured a sewage pipe that was located next to a drinking water pipe. Contaminated sewage quickly mixed with clean water and flowed into the mouths of unsuspecting water drinkers across the city.  The emergency boil warning lasted for a few days, but the aftertaste of mistrust will likely linger for years. 

Water treatment facilities also use chemicals like chlorine as a disinfectant to kill cysts, bacteria and other pathogens.  Residual chemicals are left in the water and ingested. At the very least, chemical disinfectants make our water taste and smell like a swimming pool on a warm summer day. But unfortunately, some experts claim that disinfectants in drinking water can also cause a variety of negative health effects, including cancer, skin disorders, and gastrointestinal problems.

Lastly, municipal water treatment does not remove naturally occurring minerals, like magnesium and calcium, which can cause harm to electrical appliances (e.g., irons, kettles, washing machines, dishwashers, and solar water heaters). Over time, hard calcium deposits build up, leading to electrical malfunctions, costly repairs, and reduced energy efficiency (some studies show that water heaters have to work up to 60% harder if the heating element is coated with a thick layer of minerals).

What can you do to ensure that your drinking water is safe?

The easiest option is buy a home drinking water filtration system to protect your health from known contaminants and unforeseen problems.  This task can seem daunting when faced with (literally) thousands of products that are on the market.  Most proclaim that they provide pure water, but which method is best? In an effort to simplify your lives and online shopping experience, here’s a short description of the main methods of cleaning your drinking water in Israel:

Disinfection: Adding chemicals like chorine or iodine to water, or exposing the water to ultraviolet rays, can kill a variety of harmful micro-organisms like viruses and bacteria (salmonella, cholera), and protozoa (giardia). When you add a chemical disinfecting agent, the water usually needs to sit in a storage tank to allow the disinfecting action to complete. This method does not actually remove physical or chemical contaminates in the water, it just prevents you from getting sick in an emergency situation.

Suggested product: Katadyn Tablets

Activated Charcoal: Water passing through activated carbon is used to remove organic contamination, and improve taste or odor.  Activated carbon does not bind well to certain chemicals, strong acids/bases, metals and most inorganic minerals, such as sodium, iron, lead, arsenic, fluorine, and boric acid. If not maintained, micro-organisms can grow inside the filter and this results in bacterial contamination. Activated charcoal filter is a good choice if you know that the water is safe, and you just want to improve its taste.

Suggested product: Brita

Ceramic filtration: By physically forcing water through microscopic pores in a ceramic block, many contaminates in the water are left behind. Ceramic filters are widely used for filtering drinking water because they can remove virtually all particles larger than 0.2 micrometers — including the most common water pollutants like giardia and cryptosporidium. Ceramic filters should contain an activated carbon filter to remove dissolved contaminates, and be impregnated with silver to prevent recontamination.

Product: N2 Ceramic Water 

Reverse Osmosis: In this method, water is forced through a semi-permeable membrane. Unless membranes are well maintained, bacteria and toxins can colonize the membranes, and contaminate the clean water reservoir. RO systems are problematic because they require frequent maintenance, waste tons of water, require lots of space under the sink, and are very expensive to purchase and maintain.

Product: ESP Water Products

Distillation: Distillation involves boiling the water to produce water vapor. The vapor is then cooled and condenses back into a liquid. Because the pollutants are not vaporized, they remain behind.  Water that is 99.9% pure can be obtained by distillation.  But some say that distilled water is not safe to use because it is “empty” and devoid of essential minerals, which could cause problems with nutrient absorption. Also, water distillation uses a lot of energy to boil the water, and can be a noisy and time-consuming process.

Product: WaterWise

While no solution is totally perfect, some systems are definitely better than others. The best filters on the market remove most contaminants, are easy to maintain, and are cost-effective.  With these factors in mind, we can rule out disinfection and activated carbon filters because they just don’t do enough to clean the water – what’s the point of great tasting water that is still full of contaminates?  Most Israeli consumers will also look past reverse osmosis filters because they are difficult to maintain, take up a lot of valuable space under the sink, and are very expensive to purchase.  Similarly, distillation systems are impractical for most people. While distillation is the only way to drink truly pure water, this method is impractical for most people because it takes many hours to boil and cool the water, is expensive and noisy to operate day and night, and there is scientific uncertainly about the health effects of demineralized water.

So, we are left with ceramic filtration systems as the most viable option for water purification in Israel. Ceramic filters make the most sense in terms of removal of contaminates, ease of use and cost-effectiveness. Just make sure that the system you purchase has a ceramic filter that incorporates a carbon core, has pores that are 0.2um, and are impregnated with silver to prevent recontamination.  Most systems are also designed to connect to your faucet, so you always have clean water on tap for drinking and cooking.

L’chaim!