Sometimes a writer has to have a story percolate in their head for a for a while as they filter further information from the multitude of sources available today. This story began several years ago when a woman told me she had some old medical drugs to dispose of and complained to me how our local pharmacy, police, and fire departments refused to collect them from her.
She told me she was going to just have to go home and flush them down her toilet. I almost yelled at her saying, “No, don’t do that! It will wind up in our water supply. The best thing you can do is burn the, incinerate them. Give them to me and I can burn them in my woodstove.” She was shocked. I explained how recent science shows that some medical drugs are found in our water supply and those drugs never disappear. They are termed “forever drugs”. There is also pollutants called “forever chemicals”.
More recently my wife noticed we were going through a lot of coffee makers as our water, while very good and tasty, is loaded with minerals including lime, and causing these devices to give out much sooner than they should. We bought a reverse osmosis filtration system to filter all of our drinking water to save our coffee makers and our own bodies. We reasoned from our medical doctors advice that the idea of ridding our water of both the minerals that can wind up as stones in our bodies (kidneys, bladder, tonsils, gallbladder) and sodium from our water softener would help our hearts and was a good move.
Since we get our water from an underground river known as the “Lake Superior Aquifer” we reasoned our water was already good. The labs that have tested our water supply have given it high marks in past tests.
Prior to purchasing that rather expensive reverse osmosis water filtration system ($2,000+) we purchased bottled water from the grocery store.
“RFK Jr takes on MICROPLASTICS with latest initiative” – Fox News Plastics
Now, the issue of microplastics in our water has created a new market for water filtration systems which has led to water filter shortages in America. Water filters are disposable cartridges that collect the impurities and contaminants of the water for drinking. The shortage of these filters is rising due to increased demand. Consumer awareness relative to contaminants from aging infrastructures, bacteria/parasites, and forever drugs and plastics in our water supply have led to 77% of all Americans to filter their tap water, driving up demand for these disposable filters.
CONCLUSION:
I just had a $2,000+ filtration system go bad in my home in less than 2 years. My plumber reported the system gave out from filtering all of the lime and rust out of our water and the fact I had to use it with expired filters because we could not replace them due to supply chain issues.
In ordering my new system I gave my plumber two new criteria besides making clean drinking water for me:
- Make sure it is more reliable than my last one.
- Make sure I can get a constant supply of necessary filters for it.
Some people have asked me if the bottled water from the store sold in plastic bottles is safe. I offer them thoughts based on my past knowledge of current news.
- Use the bottle one time and throw it away after use, do not reuse plastic bottles.
- Store your bottled water in a cool place as plastics begin to go bad with heat.
- In my travels abroad I noticed the Europeans are big on bottled water in glass bottles.
Finally, if you take reusable large plastic bottles into your local grocery stores to refill them yourself, you should take comfort in knowing those systems are tested. In the US, bottled water is federally regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
If I had the power, I would require that all old drugs be collected by local pharmacies and all old water filters be disposed of incinerated rather than sent to landfills. After that I would require all water to be bottled in glass jugs.
A law passed waqs passed here in Illinois that makes it a crime to dispose of electronic devices and batteries in the garbage going to landfills. Good law, but the problem is nobody knows where to take them after they set them aside, and those willing to take them want to charge you to do so. My guess is they are still ending up in our landfills.
© 2026 by Mark S. Schwendau
