TEST THE WATER
Fan of filter systems says Emirati friends prefer bottled water
Day 5 of our Water Week series looks at the options available for home filtering systems,
Maryam Al Zaabi, her husband and five children all drink filtered tap water at their home in Mohammed bin Zayed City. But when Maryam was a child, back in the 1980s, water came the traditional way – from a hole in the ground. “I can still remember when I was about six years old, and my parents brought over a guy who was an expert in digging for water to dig a well in our garden,” she says. “The water he found was so clean that we used a machine to help suck the water out of the ground, which then went through pipes connected through the entire house.
“As a child, all I wanted to do was to play in the mud and the water and for me it always tasted so good. I think when you’re a child, anything related to water tastes good.”
Ms Al Zaabi says her parents had taken precautions to ensure the water was good for their health.
“My father made sure that we had a good quality water tank that didn’t rust from the inside, and that it was closed all the time,” she says. “And we built a little wooden fence all around it to keep it protected.” Ms Al Zaabi says that many years later, when the family moved house, they started drinking bottled water.
Six years ago, the Al Zaabis had a Zepter Edelwasser water filter connected to their kitchen water pipe, which dispenses fresh drinking water from a tap on a machine.
“It’s been a good solution for us,” she says.
“It’s very safe and healthy for my kids, and we use it for wash- ing and cooking as well as drinking. Bottled water can be unhealthy if the plastic is left in the heat, and also expensive.”
The German-made five-stage filter, which uses reverse osmosis to reduce water contaminants such as arsenic and lead, cost the family about Dh4,000 and “makes the tap water taste sweeter”, Ms Al Zaabi says.
But she still finds that most of the other Emiratis she knows would rather drink bottled drinking water.
“They don’t prefer filtered tap water, for health and safety reasons.”