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Leaching: Metal escaping into the water supply Having just received a letter from the city Health Department (because of the age of the house) suggesting the incoming water pipe should be inspected to see if it was made from lead reminds us that this is a good time to talk about toxic metals in your water supply.  This is particularly important if someone is pregnant or there are young children in the house. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) tells us that if the levels of dissolved lead in our water exceed 15 parts per billion (ppb) then we need to...

Not what the doctor ordered You may find this astonishingly hard to believe, but the FDA (yes, the Food & Drug Administration, of these United States) recommends washing your old drugs down the sink, or flushing your old drugs down the toilet!  In the case of the latter, it includes things like transdermal fentanyl patches (Isn’t that just terrific for your plumbing). Why do they suggest this?  Apparently not everybody has access to proper disposal facilities, they tell us.  They are so concerned with getting OxyContin and Percocet out of your medicine cabinet to make sure that someone doesn’t take...

Yes, but not in our water supply! In English we use of the suffix “–cide” to denote something that kills or destroys something that we don’t want, such as germicide or bactericide.  In agriculture there are some invasive species of plants (“weeds”) that could compromise the quality of the crop, and so farmers carefully select herbicides which are deemed harmless to people, but target the undesirable plant.  Insecticides kill insect invaders, and fungicides handle the remainder.  All of these subclasses fall under the general heading of Pesticide, because they control “pests” of all types. Many farms are opting for non-chemical...

Many metals have antibiotic properties, such as copper, brass, bronze, and silver.  Bacteria that come in contact with these metals have their cellular activity disrupted in a number of ways that are deadly to the cells.   This is not true of stainless steel or aluminum, for example, two popular metals that are a mainstay of modern buildings.  Most hospitals and medical facilities are now in the process of replacing the shiny, easy to maintain surfaces with traditional brass or copper; this includes doorknobs, push bars, light fixtures and so on because they possess surfaces that are toxic to those...