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Comment by iambateman | Hacker News Reader

Is there a filter that works for this? They drop the report and close with “you probably have forever chemicals in your water” as their conclusion.

Some plan for what to do in response would be…very helpful.

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RO filters should. It looks like charcoal as well, assuming you replace your filter on schedule.

https://www.health.state.mn.us/communities/environment/hazar...

Glad to hear charcoal works. Picked up a Berkey filter years ago because a family member was insistent.

Charcoal filters have a relatively short lifespan.

FYI: charcoal filters can introduce arsenic and also appear to increase the bacteria in the filtered water.

The arsenic is no longer true:

"since Oct. 15, 2009, no company is allowed to manufacture, distribute, ship or sell any products that leach arsenic in concentrations greater than 5 parts per billion (ppb)" [1]

And bacteria growth is solved by following the manufacturer's directions. For example, Brita filters in use need to be kept in the fridge and changed every 2 or 3 months.

[1] https://www.wqpmag.com/water-testing/testing-services/articl...

I assume this is true for 1) filters that are NSF certified and 2) wish to not display a prop 65 warning.

A majority of the water filters purchased on Amazon are not NSF certified and ship with a prop 65 warning. In fact, it's difficult to purchase water filter components that do not have a prop 65 warning.

The problem is that there's really not much to do. It's like when we had leaded gasoline. "What should I do about it?" Well you should go back in time and destroy the company that chose TEL over a more expensive but not lead based alternative, but nobody can do that.

What you do now is have the government punish the people who did this to us for money, and prevent this in the future. Some things can't be reversed or counteracted down the line.

I clicked on a few data links from the paper... not ideal, but you take some of the identifiers, Google for them, adjust the criteria a bit...

https://ncpfastnetwork.com/data

And that's what you're asking for, but for the state of NC. I presume a similar path can be taken for other states.

This allows basically going "I live in XYZ city, so my total PFAS is 50 ppt". What you do with that information is unclear. Share on Facebook?

These filters supposedly do: https://cyclopure.com/product/purefast-filter-cartridge-for-...

NIH references them here: https://factor.niehs.nih.gov/2022/4/feature/3-feature-pfas-w...

Ymmv and you need to do your own research on specific chemicals of concern but I end up installing a reverse osmosis filter for tap water whoever I live now. It not 100% but from what I saw on the chemicals I was concerned about it did drastically reduce the issues.

I started doing this long ago when I lived in the Bay Area. So many super fund or near super fund sites that I was concerned about the water pollution.

These guys claim their filters are good for this: https://www.hydroviv.com/blogs/water-smarts/duke-nc-state-pf.... I use these filters, but no idea about the validity of their marketing on this.

NSF at least certifies their claim.

That's a surprisingly small volume of water though. I also don't love how private they are about what the filter media is.

https://info.nsf.org/Certified/DWTU/Listings.asp?CompanyName...

A common household reverse osmosis filter would greatly reduce PFAS concentrations in drinking water in general. However, some PFAS may be small enough to slip through some RO filters, so it kind of depends.

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