Popular media is filled with advertisements about the importance of drinking clean water in order to ensure good health. Have you been influenced by one of those ads and installed an RO (Reverse Osmosis) purifier at home? Or are you planning to install one? You probably need to think twice about your decision, because while you are drinking hygienic water, you might be causing more harm to public health at large.
True to their names, RO filters and purifiers function on the principle of reverse osmosis. Simply put, pressure is exerted on the water containing high concentration of impurities, and it is passed through filters to extract “pure” water. The process came as a breakthrough in the 1950s when people were on the lookout for methods to desalinate ocean water. Reverse osmosis is used not only in the purifiers at home, but also in industries, specifically the bottled water industry, both in India and abroad.