# Anything wrong with Brita water filtration?



## MamaE (May 1, 2004)

I've been thinking about my water lately - we use the Brita pitcher, but I am not sure that produces the best water quality.

Any thoughts on this system? I know very little about good water, other than the obvious - filtering out lead and major pollutants. What else do I need to know? Is there a better filtration system out there?

Thanks!


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## slightly crunchy (Jul 7, 2003)

AFAIK, the best water is through distillation, or reverse osmosis.

That is what we are about to have installed (reverse osmosis). We use Brita pitcher now, and an outside filter, and still have chlorine smell and sometimes taste to our water. If you look at what Brita filters, it is pretty limited. The filters that you install on the faucet are a bit better as far as what they filter. Brita has one of these, too.


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## wombat (Nov 3, 2002)

I think Brita pitcher filters are better than straight from the tap.

I didn't like our Brita faucet filter, kept breaking. We got a Pur one instead.

When we buy a house, I'm gonna investigate one of those reverse osmosis filters for the entire house.


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## moss (Feb 7, 2004)

Just remember that the brita pitchers are made out of polycarbonate plastic (the worst one for leaching tumour causing xenoextrogens), so transfer your water to something else as soon as it's done filtering. i use 1 liter mason jars.

brita's definitely arent the best way to filter water, but they're darn affordable.


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## xenabyte (Jul 16, 2004)

/agree with what Moss said.

Britta are better than nothing. But there is the plastic storage container 'issue'. Transfer to glass when it's done.

Distilled is great, it's 100% pure. You can add a tiny tiny pinch or a few grains of salt/organic sugar and it will no longer be so 'hypertonic' as to create leaching problems. Water is know as the 'universal solvent' for good reasons. It wants to 'meld' and blend with stuff. (like minerals or the chemical laiden container it's stored in. Always use glass with distilled water if you are drinking/cooking with it.

Reverse Osmosis is next best in purity. It's also _fairly_ hypertonic (due to it's purity). There are enough minerals that make it through the process you shouldn't have to worry about drinking it 'straight up'. _Without debating the 'mineral leaching' issue, RO should be fine to drink, long term and 'straight up'._ If you are making coffee, tea or other beverages or cooking with it, no worries (and it will tast so much better than tap). If you are storing it in a plastic container, I'd rethink the container...

The Seagull Filters (via Goatlady's search for a cheaper system that is also 'pure') is also a great filter system. You can read her post if you have more questions about that system.

In a pinch, any _carbon based_ system, (PUR, BRITTA, most 'in line' kitchen sink type filters, etc) in which that is the only thing (chemical) used, will be ok. Just changed the filters often and if you still are smelling stuff, it's more than time to change the filter.









Hope that helps. So yes, Britta are fine, you just need to tweak a few things. They are not 100% pure or really anywhere close, but they do remove enough of the stuff in your tap, to make them worth the effort.


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## steph (Dec 5, 2001)

As others have said, the Brita is pretty limited in it's scope. We use a Multi-Pure and it filters out just about everything, including VOC (volital organic compounds), pesticides, etc. They even make one now that filters out arsenic. From the homework I did, Multi-Pure makes the best filter around. More $$$ up front, but pays for itself in the longrun.


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## NaturalMommie (Feb 27, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *moss*
Just remember that the brita pitchers are made out of polycarbonate plastic (the worst one for leaching tumour causing xenoextrogens), so transfer your water to something else as soon as it's done filtering. i use 1 liter mason jars.

brita's definitely arent the best way to filter water, but they're darn affordable.

What's the deal with the plastic? I have the pitcher and use it regularly but now I'm worried. fill me in here!


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## atomicmama (Aug 21, 2004)

I prefer Pur. We have used it for years, and the water always tastes great! There are several systems; faucet mounted, under the sink, fridge container, etc. Best of luck!


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## MamaE (May 1, 2004)

Re: the Brita pitcher

About a month ago I was concerned about my pitcher
possibly being polycarbonate and called Brita. The lady at Brita's customer care said it wasn't polycarbonate and that it was a non-leaching, non-recyclable plastic called "methyl methacrylate" (not sure if I got that name exactly right).

Anyway... yikes! Now I'm worried about my pitcher again...


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## moss (Feb 7, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *NaturalMommie*
What's the deal with the plastic? I have the pitcher and use it regularly but now I'm worried. fill me in here!









http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/200311/lol5.asp

if you do a search here on the mothering boards, you should be able to pull up more info


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## OceanMomma (Nov 28, 2001)

I found this

http://www.thegreenguide.com/doc.mhtml?i=ask&s=brita

As I have one too


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## moss (Feb 7, 2004)

wow, cool, so, that's good news for us brita filter users, anyways. I looked up the msds for methyl methacrylate, and it looked like really nasty stuff.

thanks for the info guys!

moss
(a plastic person living in a plastic world)


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## MamaE (May 1, 2004)

So the pitcher is OK, it looks like. Relief. Still, I think we're going to switch to a faucet filter for now. Can't afford any more high end systems! Thanks for all the help guys!


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## late-night nan (Jan 28, 2003)

brita pitcher filters are not as cheap as they appear. the costs do add up. if you haven't got a filtration sys yet, there is a comparison chart on the site for terraflo, which is a countertop or under-sink system. it compare 4 different brands and compares costs, including using brita. http://www.terraflo.com/Compare-a-Terra.htm

our friends have this system and are happy with it. we went ahead and purchased it but cannot use it until we move into our own place. the diverter valve doesn't fit our spigot, and we don't want to mess with the plumbing as tenants.

so for the meanwhile we continue to use brita.

we used to buy reverse osmosis water from the store, but we have a 16 m.o. and heard that distilled water has no minerals, therefore is not the best drinking water. instead we use it for the humidifier, ironing, etc. to prevent mineral build-up because we have hard water.


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## mermommy (Aug 16, 2004)

We live in an apartment at the moment so we use a Brita in the fridge. We started with the PUR faucet mount, the reviews were good and the previous tenants had used one. I bought the faucet mount and a pack of 4 filters - they wore out in 4 months ( 4 replacement filters+ 2 included with the system. ) The system was correctly installed, we were not using exorbanant amounts of water and the water is not overly full of junk. Dissapointed I tried customer service since the filters and system had cost me over $80. They basically said well it must be your water buy our other system ( but it wont filter out as much) and if you like you can have one of our $10 pitchers. Others have had fine experiences with PUR but I wanted to air out the other side.

Hope your system works well for you


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## xenabyte (Jul 16, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *late-night nan*
[]...we used to buy reverse osmosis water from the store, but we have a 16 m.o. and heard that distilled water has no minerals, therefore is not the best drinking water. instead we use it for the humidifier, ironing, etc. to prevent mineral build-up because we have hard water.

R.O. water is extremely pure. There are still some minute minerals in it, compared to distilled, which should be truely 'pure' H2O to be called distilled.

If you would like to drink your R.O. water (which, we do, straight up, and have done so for the past 8 years, btw with no problems) you could soak 1, yes 1 grain of brown rice in a gallon for a few hours. This will replace the mineral content of a 'typical' water supply'. So we are not talking about many minerals, even if you drank it straight from the tap.

Or you could add a tiny tiny pinch of sea salt, which would be even better. It neutralizes the water from a slightly 'acidic' nature, removes it's hypertonic nature (trying to blend with anything it encounters) and it would add in some valuable minerals.

If you didn't want to use sea salt, you could use a tiny tiny pinch of an organic, whole cane juice sugar (like Rapadura).

Hth, and again, any filtration that is working for you, is so much better than straight tap water!!


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## huggerwocky (Jun 21, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *steph*
As others have said, the Brita is pretty limited in it's scope. We use a Multi-Pure and it filters out just about everything, including VOC (volital organic compounds), pesticides, etc. They even make one now that filters out arsenic. From the homework I did, Multi-Pure makes the best filter around. More $$$ up front, but pays for itself in the longrun.

we also use pur, we have the one right attached to the faucet. The water tastes great.

I never liked brita because the water would taste of chlorine and it took ages to flow through the filter.

I don't like distilled water either because water can be an excellent soruce of minerals

TC,


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## Persephone (Apr 8, 2004)

Water that has been distilled has no chemicals in it, but it also has no minerals either. Fish can't live in distilled water. And I was reading "Pregnancy, Childbirth, and the Newborn" last night, and they said not to drink distilled water when you're pregnant, because of the lack of minerals. I don't know about reverse osmosis. Brita and other carbon based filters let chlorine and fluoride through, so I don't really like using those, but they're better than nothing. I haven't come to any conclusions yet, that's just what I've gleaned so far.


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## moss (Feb 7, 2004)

has anyone else noticed a plasticky taste from their brita water if it's been sitting for a while? i think i'm going to keep pouring it off into glass as soon as the water's filtered thru bc i'm getting a plastic taste. maybe it's psychological, i dunno, but i swear i can taste plastic.


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## bluegrassmom (Sep 8, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *moss*
has anyone else noticed a plasticky taste from their brita water if it's been sitting for a while? i think i'm going to keep pouring it off into glass as soon as the water's filtered thru bc i'm getting a plastic taste. maybe it's psychological, i dunno, but i swear i can taste plastic.

I only get that with the first drinking batch that's been run through a new filter. We discard the very first one, of course, but the second one (the first we drink) has that taste if we don't drink it immediately. I've noticed that after the filter has been used for more than 2 or 3 cycles, the water can sit longer without tasting funny.

I go through more filters because of this, but DH and I both think it has something to do with the brand new filters.


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