Counterfeit Filters

Counterfeit Filters

The Water Quality Research Foundation (WQRF) just hosted a webinar about a problem hiding in plain sight: counterfeit refrigerator filters that are flooding the market with dangerous knockoffs. Jill Notini from the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers led the webinar, revealing that AHAM's testing of nearly 100 counterfeit filters found every single one failed to remove lead and live cysts while actually leaching over 10 different cancer-causing chemicals into drinking water. The counterfeits are getting scary good at mimicking the real thing, with some fraudsters even using burnt peanut shells and rocks to simulate the weight and appearance of genuine carbon blocks. Notini says the problem isn't going away anytime soon due to the complexities of online retail, but AHAM's "Filter it Out" campaign has been working since 2018 to educate consumers and help manufacturers protect their distribution chains. This creates both a challenge and opportunity as customers might be getting burned by cheap online counterfeits, making them more receptive to buying genuine products from trusted sources.

A Tale of Water in Two Cities

WCP Online profiles the Frakes family, proving that sometimes the best business strategy is playing the long game– and we're talking really long, like 80 years long. Bob Frakes, who runs Bill's and Brandon Water Softener Service on the South Dakota-Minnesota border, has built a long-lasting empire that recently capitalized on Sioux Falls' growth by relocating closer to the city. The timing couldn't be better, as the city of Brandon just doubled its municipal water treatment plant capacity and added reverse osmosis to drop hardness from 24 grains to 12 grains. Frakes notes that 12 grains is hardly "soft water" by professional standards, and his team has been working with city leaders to recalibrate equipment for the new water parameters. Beyond the technical upgrades, the team’s secret sauce seems to be deep community involvement, from sponsoring youth hockey arenas to organizing door-to-door salt fundraisers for high school sports teams.

“Why We Don’t Sell PFAS Filters”

Cascadian Water is taking a bold stance in the PFAS filter market, explaining why they refuse to sell PFAS filters despite constant customer requests. The company argues that the EPA's new requirement for utilities to treat PFAS at the source makes most residential filters redundant for the majority of customers, but their bigger concern is the disposal problem. They say PFAS filters don't destroy the chemicals, they just trap them, leaving homeowners with contaminated filters and no clear path for safe disposal since most communities lack hazardous waste protocols for this specific issue. The company traces PFAS back to the 1950s "better living through chemistry" era, noting that the same carbon-fluoride bonds that made these chemicals useful in everything from non-stick pans to hiking jackets are what make them nearly impossible to break down in nature. Cascadian concludes that selling PFAS filters would be "selling a product that may not actually solve a problem for most customers."

Microplastics in Bottled Water: Glass vs. Plastic

Dierolf Plumbing and Water Treatment is flipping the script on bottled water assumptions with some research that might make customers think twice about their glass bottle purchases. The company highlights a French study showing that glass bottles can contain up to 50 times more microplastics than plastic bottles (about 100 microplastic particles per liter) with the culprit being painted metal caps that shed microscopic plastic particles into the beverages. The findings have been validated by major outlets including The Washington Post and ScienceAlert, giving Dierolf solid ground to stand on when making their case. The 30-year-old company is using this research to pivot customers away from the bottled water debate entirely, positioning their reverse osmosis systems as the solution that removes microplastics and other contaminants while eliminating the need for disposable bottles altogether.

What else is happening:

• EAI Water publishes their Water Engineering State of the Union report, covering all things water engineering and where the profession is going

• Aquasana says losing clean water is what Americans fear the most during natural disasters

• Ohio-based Quality Water Systems overviews their “Total Home Care Family Plan“

• Pure Water Northwest releases a guide specifically about understanding water quality reports in Seattle