Invenergy founder and CEO Michael Polsky joins ‘Mornings with Maria’ to announce a $1.7 billion funding in a brand new vitality transmission line, aimed toward strengthening America’s electrical energy infrastructure.
As a record-breaking heatwave swept by elements of the U.S. this week, Individuals elevated their consumption of plain water, together with faucet and bottled varieties, to spice up hydration and keep away from heat-related sicknesses.
Amid insufferable temperatures and seasonal adjustments, kids and adults ought to enhance their water consumption however are suggested to keep away from unfiltered faucet and bottled water as a lot as attainable, in accordance with a water expertise and sustainability professional.
“The entire cause our firm exists is as a result of we now have a basic disaster in our ingesting water in the USA immediately, and never lots of people are speaking about it,” Wealthy “Raz” Razgaitis, CEO of FloWater, instructed FOX Enterprise.
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Bottled water is commonly contaminated with microplastics, which break down into nanoplastics. Customers typically drink a mixture of chemical compounds from water, which is wrapped in plastic. (Getty Photos / Getty Photos)
Raz, previously of Fortune 500 firms and international pharmaceutical leaders Johnson & Johnson and Eli Lilly, co-founded FloWater 12 years in the past to revive America’s ingesting water.
America’s water infrastructure is underfunded and outdated. In 2023, the EPA decided that the U.S.’s water infrastructure requires $625 billion over a 20-year interval to handle the problems, in accordance with the Infrastructure Report Card.
“From the governmental aspect, whether or not it is federal or municipal, no person can clear up our infrastructure points in a single or two phrases,” Raz mentioned. “So, it is a sizzling potato. No person desires to speak about this and amplify what the issue is.”
“Lots of firms are profiting off of a extremely damaged water infrastructure.”
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Although faucet water is evident and sometimes seems clear, relying on the placement of the faucet, the water could possibly be contaminated with 1000’s of chemical compounds, in accordance with Wealthy “Raz” Razgaitis, CEO of FloWater. (Photograph by Ben Hasty/MediaNews Group/Studying Eagle through Getty Photos / Getty Photos)
Raz instructed FOX Enterprise that shopper packaged items firms, particularly massive beverage manufacturers and vitality drink firms, are capitalizing on impressionable younger adults and preventing for youths’ mindshare.
“I acquired personally obsessed with this, watching my daughters at a younger age get, what I might say is, programmed in the identical approach that I acquired programmed rising up by turning into actually fixated on sugary, caffeinated drinks,” Raz mentioned.
“It is a actual drawback as a result of it creates lifelong behaviors, addictions and dependencies that in the end result in cataclysmic selections downstream.”
Raz mentioned selecting between unfiltered faucet water and bottled ingesting water is like evaluating cigarettes.
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Customers who skip faucet and bottled ingesting water typically go for one thing with extra sugar that can be wrapped in plastic, in accordance with Raz. (iStock)
“Seventy thousand to eighty thousand chemical compounds have been submitted to the toxicology division of the EPA during the last many many years,” Raz mentioned. “There are an estimated 50,000 chemical compounds in use in the USA immediately. These chemical compounds are used for issues like pharmaceutical manufacturing, textile manufacturing, agricultural use, and in the end fewer than 100 of these roughly 50,000 chemical compounds in use in the USA immediately are regulated by the Secure Ingesting Water Act of 1974, which has hardly been up to date since 1974.”
“We’re actually ingesting a chemical cocktail,” Raz mentioned.
In abstract, the SDWA was established to guard water high quality from widespread contaminants and later amended and reauthorized in 1986 and 1996, in accordance with the EPA web site.
Raz, nevertheless, instructed FOX Enterprise that roughly 70% of Individuals don’t like or don’t belief faucet water, so that they resort to bottled water, which is riddled with micro- and nanoplastic contaminants.
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The Secure Ingesting Water Act of 1974 was signed into regulation by President Gerald Ford and established to guard water high quality from widespread contaminants. In 2016, Flint, Michigan, residents confronted a serious well being disaster because of severely contaminated water. (Brett Carlsen/Getty Photos / Getty Photos)
“Our job is de facto to cease that cycle,” he mentioned of FloWater.
FloWater, a purified ingesting water system, is used to reinforce each the style and results of ingesting water. Raz based the model to get adults and kids to fall in love with water once more.
“The way in which that we do that’s by taking the water that municipal programs ship, which they do one of the best job they’ll probably do given the many years of contamination which have occurred in our ingesting water,” Raz mentioned. “Then, we add a purification system onto that that radically adjustments that faucet water. It reduces the unhealthy stuff and places good issues in there, delivering what folks say is the world’s best-tasting water.”
Whereas Raz encourages workplaces, gyms, college districts and different public locations to offer folks with FloWater programs that price round $5 monthly, he isn’t specific about what system is used, so long as one is obtainable to shoppers.
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Raz advises householders to buy a water filtering system with a triple filter and reverse osmosis to make sure clear ingesting water. (iStock)
The FloWater web site gives a water evaluation characteristic for all zip codes within the U.S. to find out what precisely is of their faucet water.
“There are over 200 million Individuals estimated to be ingesting water from the faucet with PFAS in it,” Raz mentioned.
PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are extensively used, long-lasting chemical compounds, elements of which break down very slowly over time. There are literally thousands of them present in business, shopper and industrial merchandise, in accordance with the EPA web site.
“Over 56% of Individuals have been ingesting faucet water with lead in it,” Raz mentioned.
He added that microplastics present in bottled water develop into nanoplastics as a result of they don’t biodegrade, and people devour about one bank card’s price of plastic each week.
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“The folks that do not like that drawback solved are folks promoting shopper packaged items which can be wrapped in plastic and distributed,” Raz instructed FOX Enterprise.
For householders who don’t have entry to FloWater, Raz recommends a system with a triple filter and reverse osmosis, a membrane that’s impervious to contaminants and removes them right down to .0001 microns, in accordance with Raz.
Householders ought to have a system with a mineral filter that features calcium, potassium, magnesium and sodium for the countertop or underneath the sink.
Programs for the house can price wherever from a number of hundred {dollars} to $2,000.
