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As a record-breaking heatwave swept through parts of the U.S. this week, Americans increased their consumption of plain water, including tap and bottled varieties, to boost hydration and avoid heat-related illnesses.
Amid unbearable temperatures and seasonal changes, children and adults should increase their water intake but are advised to avoid unfiltered tap and bottled water as much as possible, according to a water technology and sustainability expert.
“The whole reason our company exists is because we have a fundamental crisis in our drinking water in the United States today, and not a lot of people are talking about it,” Rich “Raz” Razgaitis, CEO of FloWater, told FOX Business.
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Bottled water is often contaminated with microplastics, which break down into nanoplastics. Consumers often drink a combination of chemicals from water, which is wrapped in plastic. (Getty Images / Getty Images)
Raz, formerly of Fortune 500 companies and global pharmaceutical leaders Johnson & Johnson and Eli Lilly, co-founded FloWater 12 years ago to restore America’s drinking water.
America’s water infrastructure is underfunded and outdated. In 2023, the EPA determined that the U.S.’s water infrastructure requires $625 billion over a 20-year period to address the issues, according to the Infrastructure Report Card.
“From the governmental side, whether it’s federal or municipal, nobody can solve our infrastructure issues in one or two terms,” Raz said. “So, it’s a hot potato. Nobody wants to talk about this and amplify what the problem is.”
“A lot of companies are profiting off of a really broken water infrastructure.”
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Though tap water is clear and often appears clean, depending on the location of the tap, the water could be contaminated with thousands of chemicals, according to Rich “Raz” Razgaitis, CEO of FloWater. (Photo by Ben Hasty/MediaNews Group/Reading Eagle via Getty Images / Getty Images)
Raz told FOX Business that consumer packaged goods companies, especially big beverage brands and energy drink companies, are capitalizing on impressionable young adults and fighting for kids’ mindshare.
“I got personally passionate about this, watching my daughters at a young age get, what I would say is, programmed in the same way that I got programmed growing up by becoming really fixated on sugary, caffeinated drinks,” Raz said.
“This is a real problem because it creates lifelong behaviors, addictions and dependencies that ultimately lead to cataclysmic choices downstream.”
Raz said choosing between unfiltered tap water and bottled drinking water is like comparing cigarettes.
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Consumers who skip tap and bottled drinking water often opt for something with more sugar that is also wrapped in plastic, according to Raz. (iStock)
“Seventy thousand to eighty thousand chemicals have been submitted to the toxicology division of the EPA over the last many decades,” Raz said. “There are an estimated 50,000 chemicals in use in the United States today. Those chemicals are used for things like pharmaceutical manufacturing, textile manufacturing, agricultural use, and ultimately fewer than 100 of those roughly 50,000 chemicals in use in the United States today are regulated by the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974, which has hardly been updated since 1974.”
“We’re literally drinking a chemical cocktail,” Raz said.
In summary, the SDWA was established to protect water quality from common contaminants and later amended and reauthorized in 1986 and 1996, according to the EPA website.
Raz, however, told FOX Business that roughly 70% of Americans don’t like or don’t trust tap water, so they resort to bottled water, which is riddled with micro- and nanoplastic contaminants.
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The Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974 was signed into law by President Gerald Ford and established to protect water quality from common contaminants. In 2016, Flint, Michigan, residents faced a major health crisis due to severely contaminated water. (Brett Carlsen/Getty Images / Getty Images)
“Our job is really to stop that cycle,” he said of FloWater.
FloWater, a purified drinking water system, is used to enhance both the taste and effects of drinking water. Raz founded the brand to get adults and children to fall in love with water again.
“The way that we do that is by taking the water that municipal systems deliver, which they do the best job they can possibly do given the decades of contamination that have happened in our drinking water,” Raz said. “Then, we add a purification device onto that that radically changes that tap water. It reduces the bad stuff and puts good things in there, delivering what people say is the world’s best-tasting water.”
While Raz encourages offices, gyms, school districts and other public places to provide people with FloWater systems that cost around $5 per month, he isn’t particular about what system is used, as long as one is offered to consumers.
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Raz advises homeowners to purchase a water filtering system with a triple filter and reverse osmosis to ensure clean drinking water. (iStock)
The FloWater website offers a water analysis feature for all zip codes in the U.S. to determine what exactly is in their tap water.
“There are over 200 million Americans estimated to be drinking water from the tap with PFAS in it,” Raz said.
PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are widely used, long-lasting chemicals, components of which break down very slowly over time. There are thousands of them found in commercial, consumer and industrial products, according to the EPA website.
“Over 56% of Americans have been drinking tap water with lead in it,” Raz said.
He added that microplastics found in bottled water become nanoplastics because they don’t biodegrade, and individuals consume about one credit card’s worth of plastic every week.
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“The people that don’t like that problem solved are people selling consumer packaged goods that are wrapped in plastic and distributed,” Raz told FOX Business.
For homeowners who don’t have access to FloWater, Raz recommends a system with a triple filter and reverse osmosis, a membrane that is impervious to contaminants and removes them down to .0001 microns, according to Raz.
Homeowners should have a system with a mineral filter that includes calcium, potassium, magnesium and sodium for the countertop or under the sink.
Systems for the home can cost anywhere from a few hundred dollars to $2,000.
