Water is life

We all know how important water is, especially when it comes to our bodies. Water makes up about 60% of our body weight (on average) and plays a very important role in a lot of body functions. It is said that a person can survive for about 3 days without water and when in a survival situation (like maybe being stuck on an island), the first thing to do is to look for a good source of water, before even thinking about shelter or food. So, water is undeniably something we can't live without.

Even after knowing this, many people still underestimate the power of water. Medical experts always advise people to drink lots of water because that alone is enough to prevent some health issues, especially concerning the kidneys. But do you know that it's also dangerous to drink too much water? There's something called water toxicity and it can lead to an issue called hyponatremia. Water and salt are supposed to maintain a certain balance in our bodies, upsetting this balance can be disastrous. I'm not going to go deep into this, you can research more on it by just searching "water toxicity" on Google.

Now, it's one thing to drink water but it's a different case to drink pure and safe water. Drinking unsafe water also comes with its own health baggage such as cholera, dysentery, hepatitis, and so on. So, how do I make sure that the water I drink is safe? For starters, the city where I live has one of the best underground water in the whole country, I'm talking about Benin City. What I'm saying is actually facts, I studied Aquaculture at the university and water quality is one of the things we do. One of the places with the worst underwater in the country is Lagos, the Lagosians here know I'm not lying.

What does all these mean? It means you can drink the borehole water here in my city and it's very refreshing and safe but the problem comes from the storage. The water is pumped from the ground into storage tanks but some people haven't washed their tanks for years. Many years ago, my family used to drink water from the borehole and we didn't think much about it until I saw a video of someone cleaning their tank, the amount of dirt in it almost made me vomit. I showed my parents and that was how we started drinking sachet water 😅

Even when I was at the university, I only drank sachet water but when the price increased, I switched to boiling my water before keeping it in a large container. But the funny thing is that even the sachet water my family has switched to isn't totally safe, as the method in which some of these companies package their sachet water is questionable. But some of them are trusted and reputable, and the chances of you accumulating bacteria like E. Coli from drinking sachet water is lower than when you drink from a storage tank that hasn't been washed for years.

Tips for safer water

If you're one of those who drink borehole water, then make sure that the storage tanks are always washed at least twice a year. The recommended washing frequency is every 3 months but doing it twice a year (6 month intervals) is also a good option. But if washing the tanks isn't in your control, the alternative is to first boil the water before drinking. Boiling takes care of most microorganisms unless the water is infested by Clostridium botulinum which is resistant to heat (they don't die even when you boil them). But these guys are rarely found in water.

For those in places with very messed up water, your best option would be to settle for sachet or bottled water. But if that's too expensive for you, then you can carry out a simple purification process on your water before drinking. This basically means boiling, sedimentation and filtration. There's also a purification chemical that makes water safe for drinking but I have forgotten the name. A doctor demonstrated it on Twitter last year by taking erosion water, pouring this chemical into it and all the dirt coagulated. Water that was once brown became colourless, and he drank it!

Safe and clean water is very important, taking unsafe water comes with certain health challenges. Many of us in Nigeria have opted for sachet water as the best, convenient and affordable choice for safe water but even that isn't totally safe and not much affordable these days. Boiling of water before drinking remains the safest way but can be stressful and when you factor in the cost of boiling it (by using gas or kerosene), it might not be so cheap.

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