Russian Shungite for Water Purification - A Good Idea Gone Bad

For anyone who saw my Facebook/Instagram post yesterday on Russian shungite: after posting about our home water quality tests and my experiment with using shungite for safe water purification, I did some research and learned that much of Russian shungite packaged for consumer use is contaminated with highly toxic environmental pollutants like TCDD and other dioxin-like compounds.

Then, my bestie Sunny contacted me and warned me about radioactivity and other dioxins in Russian-produced shungite, and the possibility of it being a counterfeit product (thank you girl).

So, we packaged the shungite for disposal (we were lucky that we hadn’t started using it yet), and I removed the post from FB and Instagram. Right now, I’m NOT recommending shungite for water purification.

Our water test results were appalling, and even the well water that had been processed through our new Berkey filtration system (551 PPM) was hardly better than our ghastly well water (562 PPM). Our home distilled water is almost pure (1 PPM). The EPA’s absolute limit for potable water is 499.

At 500 PPM and up, water is not recommended for cooking, showering, and definitely not drinking. My husband and I have a Cullen rep coming to the house this week to test the well for a wider range of contaminants. We boxed up the Berkey over the weekend and are shipping it back this week. The seller has been very nice about all this, and is giving us a refund.

Has it become too much to ask for safe water? Coincidentally, I was reading about the #capetownwatercrisis last month and thinking how lucky we are to have a constant supply of potable water here, and how awful it must be to be without that basic resource.

There is no ‘Planet B’ people! This is the only rock we’ve got. We’re turning water into poison. 

Barbie xo