Eastern Water Treatment Ltd. - Think before you drink! Magazine

Be water-wise when it comes to using water this summer by having a read of our summer tips.

Finally! The weather is warm, the sun is shining, and you’re lacing up your athletic shoes and ready to go.

If you’re exercising moderately, The American College of Sports Medicine recommends drinking:

On average, your body loses approximately 2.3 litres of water daily. When you exercise, your body produces internal heat that is released and cooled through perspiration. This process accelerates water loss. You lose water faster than salt and carbohydrates, so healthy water is the best fluid to drink for the first 80 minutes of your workout. If you’re exercising longer, a sports drink with 4 to 8 percent carbohydrates will help replace lost minerals.

Don’t rely on thirst to be your guide. You can lose 2 to 3 percent of your body fluid before your mouth feels dry. By the time you take a drink, you’re no longer exercising at peak physical performance.

Ignoring your body’s need for water can be dangerous, especially in heat. Warning symptoms of dehydration include light-headedness, headache, fatigue, muscle cramps and confusion. Cardiac failure and coma can result from severe heat exhaustion,

So take a drink of cool, refreshing water and carry a filled water bottle with you before you head out the door.

Swimming is as much a part of summer as barbecues and cricket. While swimming is excellent exercise, it’s also very tough on your hair.

You may be surprised to learn that it’s not the chlorine in the pool water that turns blond or grey hair green. The culprits are actually hard metals dissolved in the water, particularly iron, manganese or copper that leaches out from pool pipes. The hair shaft absorbs the metals, which are oxidized by chlorine, turning hair a greenish colour.

	Immediately after your swim, wash your hair in warm, softened water.
	Use a shampoo containing EDTA (ethylenediamene tetracetic acid) or dissolve an aspirin in warm water and wash your hair with the mixture to reduce the build-up of oxidized metals in your hair.

While chlorine may not turn your hair green, it causes plenty of damage. A bleach, chlorine will fade colour-treated hair, cause the frizzies in permed hair, and leave dark hair dull and lifeless. Chlorine dries all hair types, causing breakage. To prevent damage, wear a leave-in conditioner while swimming. Covering your hair with a latex or silicone bathing cap while you exercise will give you a heat-conditioning treatment.

Even if you don’t swim, summer can be tough on your hair. Your skin isn’t the only thing that can get sunburned. So protect your hair with a SPF conditioner, wear a hat when you’re out in the sun and make sure you wash your hair in soft water. Hard water mineral residues quickly build upon the hair shaft, causing dull, rough hair. Soft water and a good shampoo and conditioner will help restore soft, shiny hair.

Your water looks clear when it comes out of the tap, so why do your ice cubes look like frozen skim milk? Well, there isn’t one clear answer. Making crystal-clear ice cubes depends upon several factors:

	Highly filtered water — Hard water contains minerals like calcium that condense when frozen, which will cloud up ice cubes. Installing a water conditioner will remove many of the minerals that cause hard water, but minerals aren’t the only culprits in forming cloudy ice cubes.
	Dissolved air — As water freezes, dissolved air is forced out as a gas, which forms bubbles. These bubbles are trapped in the ice, making it look opaque. Even distilled water or water filtered through a reverse osmosis system needs to be boiled to remove dissolved air before it is frozen. But this still doesn’t guarantee clear cubes. Even after boiling, the ice may still have bubbles because of the freezing process.
	Freezing in layers — Pristine icicles are created when water drips down and freezes in progressive layers. This prevents air bubbles from forming. The same idea is used in commercial ice machines — cold water flows continuously over a grid where ice forms in layers. This process freezes a fraction of water while the rest is discarded before the air concentration gets too high. An ice cube tray in the freezer can’t replicate this effect, although making your cubes smaller or thinner may help.

The ice you make at home will never look as clear as the kind you buy from a commercial ice manufacturer. But there are some simple things you can do that may make your ice look better: