Arsenic
Naturally occurring in groundwater in parts of the US, and almost nothing in the jug category touches it.
Most filter jugs cannot do thisArsenic is not an industrial pollutant in most places where it appears — it dissolves out of the rock, which makes it a geology problem and a private-well problem far more than a mains-supply one. Parts of the American Southwest, New England and the upper Midwest sit on affected aquifers. It matters here because it is one of the clearest cases where the honest answer is that a pitcher is the wrong tool: arsenic removal needs a specific adsorptive medium such as iron oxide, or reverse osmosis, and activated carbon does very little to it.
How you know you have it
- No taste, no smell, no colour at drinking-water concentrations
- A private well, particularly a deep bedrock well in a known arsenic region
- A state or county groundwater survey flagging the aquifer
What works
Nothing in the mainstream pitcher category is certified for arsenic. Reverse osmosis, or a dedicated arsenic adsorption cartridge in a plumbed-in system, is the real answer. Where a pitcher publishes an arsenic figure it will be a lab test rather than an NSF certification, and arsenic exists in two forms — arsenic III and arsenic V — that behave very differently, so a figure that does not say which one is close to meaningless.
What does not
Every carbon and ion exchange pitcher on this site. Brita, PUR, ZeroWater, Philips, BWT and the rest make no arsenic claim.
Questions
Does a filter jug remove arsenic?
Very few do. Nothing in the mainstream pitcher category is certified for arsenic. Reverse osmosis, or a dedicated arsenic adsorption cartridge in a plumbed-in system, is the real answer. Where a pitcher publishes an arsenic figure it will be a lab test rather than an NSF certification, and arsenic exists in two forms — arsenic III and arsenic V — that behave very differently, so a figure that does not say which one is close to meaningless.
What does not work: Every carbon and ion exchange pitcher on this site. Brita, PUR, ZeroWater, Philips, BWT and the rest make no arsenic claim.