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 way of components of the U.S. this week, People elevated their consumption of plain water, together with faucet and bottled varieties, to spice up hydration and keep away from heat-related diseases.
Amid insufferable temperatures and seasonal modifications, youngsters and adults ought to enhance their water consumption however are suggested to keep away from unfiltered faucet and bottled water as a lot as doable, in keeping with a water expertise and sustainability skilled.
“The entire motive our firm exists is as a result of we’ve got a elementary disaster in our ingesting water in the US as we speak, 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 usually contaminated with microplastics, which break down into nanoplastics. Customers typically drink a mixture of chemical compounds from water, which is wrapped in plastic. (Getty Pictures / Getty Pictures)
Raz, previously of Fortune 500 corporations and world 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America’s water infrastructure is underfunded and outdated.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 keeping with the Infrastructure Report Card.
“From the governmental facet, whether or not it is federal or municipal, no one can clear up our infrastructure points in a single or two phrases,” Raz mentioned. “So, it is a sizzling potato. No one desires to speak about this and amplify what the issue is.”
“Lots of corporations 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 situation of the faucet, the water could possibly be contaminated with hundreds of chemical compounds, in keeping with Wealthy “Raz” Razgaitis, CEO of FloWater. (Photograph by Ben Hasty/MediaNews Group/Studying Eagle through Getty Pictures / Getty Pictures)
Raz instructed FOX Enterprise that client packaged items corporations, particularly large beverage manufacturers and vitality drink corporations, are capitalizing on impressionable younger adults and preventing for youths’ mindshare.
“I bought personally obsessed with this, watching my daughters at a younger age get, what I might say is, programmed in the identical method that I bought programmed rising up by changing into actually fixated on sugary, caffeinated drinks,” Raz mentioned.
“This can be a actual drawback as a result of it creates lifelong behaviors, addictions and dependencies that finally 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 also be wrapped in plastic, in keeping with Raz. (iStock)
“Seventy thousand to eighty thousand chemical compounds have been submitted to the toxicology division of the EPA during the last many a long time,” Raz mentioned. “There are an estimated 50,000 chemical compounds in use in the US as we speak. These chemical compounds are used for issues like pharmaceutical manufacturing, textile manufacturing, agricultural use, and finally fewer than 100 of these roughly 50,000 chemical compounds in use in the US as we speak are regulated by the Protected 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 defend water high quality from widespread contaminants and later amended and reauthorized in 1986 and 1996, in keeping with the EPA web site.
Raz, nonetheless, instructed FOX Enterprise that roughly 70% of People 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 Protected Ingesting Water Act of 1974 was signed into legislation by President Gerald Ford and established to guard water high quality from widespread contaminants. In 2016, Flint, Michigan, residents confronted a significant well being disaster because of severely contaminated water. (Brett Carlsen/Getty Pictures / Getty Pictures)
“Our job is absolutely 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 methods ship, which they do one of the best job they’ll presumably do given the a long time of contamination which have occurred in our ingesting water,” Raz mentioned. “Then, we add a purification system onto that that radically modifications that faucet water. It reduces the unhealthy stuff and places good issues in there, delivering what individuals say is the world’s best-tasting water.”
Whereas Raz encourages places of work, gyms, college districts and different public locations to offer individuals with FloWater methods that price round $5 per 30 days, he isn’t specific about what system is used, so long as one is obtainable to shoppers.
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Raz advises owners to buy a water filtering system with a triple filter and reverse osmosis to make sure clear ingesting water. (iStock)
The FloWater web site provides a water evaluation function for all zip codes within the U.S. to find out what precisely is of their faucet water.
“There are over 200 million People 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, parts of which break down very slowly over time. There are millions of them present in business, client and industrial merchandise, in keeping with the EPA web site.
“Over 56% of People 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 eat about one bank card’s value of plastic each week.
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“The individuals that do not like that drawback solved are individuals promoting client packaged items which can be wrapped in plastic and distributed,” Raz instructed FOX Enterprise.
For owners 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 all the way down to .0001 microns, in keeping 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.
Methods for the house can price anyplace from a couple of hundred {dollars} to $2,000.
