One of the responsibilities of the Environmental Protection Agency is imposing limits on the amount of harmful chemicals allowed in tap water . But sometimes these regulations are n’t enough : In many of parts of the country , Americans are drinking water that passes the legal test but could still sit a menace to their health . as luck would have it , checking local water contaminant stage is easy for anyone with WWW access .

AsFast Companyreports , theTap Water Databasefrom the Environmental Working Group , a non-profit-making , non - partisan environmental wellness organisation , provides the public with water - timber selective information on 50,000 utilities around the country . Visitors to the website can search for their local water facility by nation or zip code . Once they chance those , they ’re directed to a list of chemicals that surpass the limit set by wellness professionals . Common contaminant like chloroform , nitrates , and trichloroacetic acid increase the drinker ’s hazard of cancer if they ’re display to them over extend periods . Each reputation also include chemicals that are present in the weewee supply but conform to the recommended health guideline .

The puppet is the only comprehensive and full accessible database of its variety . Earlier in 2017 , the site was update for the first time in eight years with information collected from 2010 to 2015 . But even if the data is a couple of year old , the resource is valuable to hoi polloi who trust on their local utility program for imbibition water . This is specially true for mass live in low - income neighborhoods where pollution level run to be high-pitched .

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Identifying the unwanted chemicals in your piss can also avail you get smart about purifying it at home . Different home purifier are built to filter out unlike chemicals , which make translate the lineament of your tap water supply before purchasing one essential . Here ’s ourguideto foot the best water filter for your home .

[ h / tFast Company ]