Are you worried?

Yes you can, and they will. We had a concern over the taste of our water a few years ago, they came and tested it quite quickly. The problem was caused by higher than normal levels of chlorine due to a dry summer, the chlorine was reacting with the rubber seal in our kettle.

Lead is a natural constituent of ground water in many areas along with other minerals.

In our area we still have many miles of asbestos cement water pipes, which is why our mains pressure is so low, the pipes cannot take more pressure, provided they are not damaged, they are supposed to be safe.

Wobbly apparently you can ask for your water company to test your tap water for lead levels. So that's in the pipeline for us, if you'll,excuse the pun.

Anya, old lead piping in hard water areas is not a danger as the water forms a scale which seals the water from the lead. Soft water areas are at risk.

DJ, I don't see why speaking of asbestos is not nice. it was a fact that in the 70's asbestos was prevalent in our food and drink. Asbestos pulp was used as a filtering agent in the food industry and us and our children would have ingested it without any knowledge of it. This is a different issue to the asbestos industry and it's dangers, which were known, if ignored.

We discuss the dangers of man made chemicals etc. yet asbestos, a natural material, has proven far more dangerous than many of those chemicals and is still a major danger as so much still exists. To not speak of it and it's dangers would be ignoring it.

Wonder how many of us still have the old lead piping used by our water companies to pipe our water to us. I was shocked to discover we do. We are in a Severn Trent area.

Not very nice thing to say about asbestos, either. I know people who have died of asbestosis. It doesn't take too long in some of them once it's been recognised.

You want to go back to lead toys, along with the arsenic and cadmium that was found in them?
Personally I think that's one of the good things the EU has done, along with other regulations that are enforced by trading standards.
You can always buy Chinese ones off the back of a lorry.
I think it was on Fake Britain that a Chinese man said that CE meant Chinese export.

Makes me wonder how our children ever survived all the additives (plus worms, bugs, lead toys, asbestos etc) they ate because we were not told what was in our food in the 70's.

wb,

I think where one lives can make a big difference to the taste of tap water. We used a filter jug in Oxfordshire because the water was so 'metallic'. Here in Scotland it's lovely straight out of the tap.

TB, I wasn't suggesting it worried me, quite happy with the delicate flavour of chlorine, much better than the alternative. The water in my garden well does not look palatable.

We'd all be coming down with water borne diseases if it mattered, wobbly. So long as the harmful stuff is filtered out (which it is unless something goes wrong), we're fine. No worries.

Clean drinking water is one of the wonders of the world and needs to be made available to everybody, along with proper santitation.

Don't like to add to your worries but this is what you get in a glass of tap water

www.nwl.co.uk/_assets/documents/3124_Web_PDF_-_Whats_in_your_tap_water.pdf

Plus it will have been peed by many others prior to that -- luvly.

pitt, I've found that avoiding anything that has perfume in it has reduced my rashy skin reactions and itchiness to zero.

We used to have bars of green soap at work that were filled with sand to get grease off, that really would exfoliate.

As I grow older I am finding that I have bad reactions to more and more "man made" ingredients. You need a degree in Chemistry and made up names when reading the packets and bottles, assuming that you have remembered your glasses for the small print.
Why can't manufacturers make it easier for us to make an informed choice?

If you feel the need to hasten the removal of dead skin a bit of salt will do the trick!

I don't think cost puts people off. People are taken in by promises of improved "beauty".

They are meant to be skin scrubbers, like a good old-fashioned rough flannel. Or a pumice stone. Can't say I've ever felt the need to scrub (exfoliate) that much. Exfoliation (dead skin falling off) happens naturally anyway and a good rough towel will help it on its way.

DJ, microbeads must fulfil some purpose (not necessarily useful or essential), otherwise it would be cheaper to leave them out.

No idea. None of the stuff I buy has microbeads in it.
I only buy vegan for toiletries, and household cleaning stuff and no vegan product would have microbeads in it, as they would know they are dangerous to the environment.
Buy vegan, then you'll know.

The trouble is durhamjen, a lot of the time we don't know because the labelling is not clear and price is no indication either.

So - do any of the labels say in the list of ingredients:
The microbeads used in this product are mainly made of polyethylene (PE), but can be also be made of polypropylene (PP), polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) and nylon.

Wobbly, the function of microbeads is to make profit for their manufacturers.

I presume you meant DJ, Elegran.

If everybody stopped putting unnecessary chemicals on or in themselves, there would have been no need for this thread.

Micro beads are a good example of stuff we could manage without -- unless someone knows different. Not sure what their function is.

Misuse of chemicals, overuse of chemicals and unnecessary use of chemicals (e.g.beauty/anti-ageing products) and some chemicals in particular are causing problems all over the place but in the campaign to reduce this damaging use let's remember all the benefits too!
It is easy enough to find soothing balms/ cosmetics that are 'natural' and do not contain micro bead etc.