FAQS

Thompson Water Factory Ltd "Nature Perfected"

FAQS

Flowing water has provided Canada with more than inspiration. During the period of European colonization, the rivers carried furs, trade goods, and explorers, heralding the influx of settlers into the wilderness.

The arrangement of streams and rivers flowing into Hudson Bay and into the Mackenzie and St. Lawrence Rivers permitted canoes to travel west and north across the length and breadth of the land that became Canada.
Here in northern Manitoba that is especially true with the trading posts established at York Factory, Norway House, Nelson House, etc.

We are the Nation we are today because of water.

Here are a few "FAQS"about our bottled water and water in general. If you have more questions, please call or email us or use the form below:

1. What is Reverse Osmosis?

To understand "reverse osmosis," it is probably best to start with normal osmosis. According to Miriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, osmosis is the "movement of a solvent through a semipermeable membrane (as of a living cell) into a solution of higher solute concentration that tends to equalize the concentrations of solute on the two sides of the membrane." That's a mouthful. To understand what it means, this picture may be helpful:

On the left is a beaker filled with water, and a tube has been half-submerged in the water. As you would expect, the water level in the tube is the same as the water level in the beaker. In the middle figure, the end of the tube has been sealed with a "semipermeable membrane" and the tube has been half-filled with a salty solution and submerged. Initially, the level of the salt solution and the water are equal, but over time, something unexpected happens -- the water in the tube actually rises. The rise is attributed to "osmotic pressure."

A semipermeable membrane is a membrane that will pass some atoms or molecules but not others. Saran wrap is a membrane, but it is impermeable to almost everything we commonly throw at it. The best common example of a semipermeable membrane would be the lining of your intestines, or a cell wall. Gore-tex is another common semipermeable membrane. Gore-tex fabric contains an extremely thin plastic film into which billions of small pores have been cut. The pores are big enough to let water vapour through, but small enough to prevent liquid water from passing.

In the figure above, the membrane allows passage of water molecules but not salt molecules. One way to understand osmotic pressure would be to think of the water molecules on both sides of the membrane. They are in constant Brownian motion. On the salty side, some of the pores get plugged with salt atoms, but on the pure-water side that does not happen. Therefore, more water passes from the pure-water side to the salty side, as there are more pores on the pure-water side for the water molecules to pass through. The water on the salty side rises until one of two things occurs:
a) The salt concentration becomes the same on both sides of the membrane (which isn't going to happen in this case since there is pure water on one side and salty water on the other).
b) The water pressure rises as the height of the column of salty water rises, until it is equal to the osmotic pressure. At that point, osmosis will stop.

Osmosis, by the way, is why drinking salty water (like ocean water) will kill you. When you put salty water in your stomach, osmotic pressure begins drawing water out of your body to try to dilute the salt in your stomach. Eventually, you dehydrate and die.
In reverse osmosis, the idea is to use the membrane to act like an extremely fine filter to create drinkable water from salty (or otherwise contaminated) water. The salty water is put on one side of the membrane and pressure is applied to stop, and then reverse, the osmotic process. It generally takes a lot of pressure and is fairly slow, but it works.

2. How Do the Three R’s Apply to Water???

The three "R"s - Reduce, Reuse and Recycle - apply to any substance we can reduce, reuse or recycle. The focus with water, as with all other substances or energy forms, should be on reducing our use. For example, turning off taps when they do not need to be running, fixing leaking faucets, etc. Some appliances are built to reuse some water - for example, some washing machines have a 'suds saver' feature that also saves the wash cycle water for use in another wash cycle. Recycling water can be done by using water from laundry for gardens, watering plants with leftover tea, etc. The first step is to think about the water you are using (is it necessary?) and how you might use it again. You will be surprised what a difference you can make.

Rain water is also collectable for future use such as watering plants, etc. Some people have several rain barrels to collect water to use for many purposes - it is soft water and very nice for washing your hair

3. Another question is "WHY SHOULD WE CARE"?

Water is the most common substance on Earth, covering more than 70 percent of the planet's surface. Water makes up two-thirds of our own bodies. But the abundance of water is an illusion. Only a tiny fraction of the planet's water is drinkable. Ninety-seven percent is sea water, which is expensive and difficult to desalinate. About 2 percent is caught in polar ice caps. That leaves just 1 percent to sustain life in the next millennium.

Already, 26 countries are classified as water-stressed -- meaning they don't have enough water to sustain agriculture and economic development. A third of Africans live without enough water, as do most in the Middle East. Looking out to 2025, the number of people living in water-stressed countries will increase six and a half times.

A child dies every 8 seconds from drinking contaminated water due to the lack of good drinking water. Before it is too late, we need to stop and think about our natural resources and preserving the quality of life we have.

4. Efficiency

The water bottling industry is one of, if not the most, efficient and clean user of water. Over 97% of the water taken by our members is intended for human consumption. To manufacture 1 litre of bottled water it takes 1.03 litres of water. When compared to beer (7 litres of water to produce 1 litre of beer) and milk (¹6 litres of water to produce 1 litre of milk), the statistics clearly show bottled water production to be an efficient user of ground water.

As required by Health Canada’s, Food and Drugs Act, bottled water must be potable and fit for human consumption. Bottled water is one of the few beverages in our society that does not contribute in any way to health problems, such as obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, etc.

In comparison, only a small percentage (approximately 1%) of municipal water is used for consumption, as the rest is used as utility water for activities such as; watering lawns, flushing toilets, laundry, etc., and creates sewage effluent.

1 Excludes water needed to grow grain, hay, irrigation, etc to feed dairy cattle. (Reference: Dairy Farmers of Ontario)

Let’s compare some other common industries:

Hotel/Motel Average use: 216 gallons per guest per night (includes showers, laundry and pool, etc.)

Car Wash Self-serve wand wash - 15 Gallons per vehicle average

Automatic Car Wash - 85.3 Gallons per vehicle average

Restaurant 35 gallons per seat per day

Daycare 15 gallons per person per day

Hospital 300 gallons per bed per day

Laundry 400 - 500 gallons per standard-sized machine per day

Campground With hookups - 120 gallons per campsite per day

(Souce: Residential Water Use Research Project of the Johns Hopkins University and the Office of Technical Studies of the Architectural Standards Division of the Federal Housing Administration, 1963. Found on page 79 of Water Supply and Pollution Control, 6^thEdition, W. Viessman, 1998.)

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Did you know?

Facts and figures related to the quantity of fresh water in Canada and the world.

(Source: Government of Canada, Environment Canada, Sustainable Water Use Branch)

About 70% of the earth is covered in water.
The total amount of water in the world is approximately 1.4 billion km³, of which 97.5% is saltwater and 2.5% is fresh water.
Of the 35million km³ of freshwater on earth, about 24.4million km³ are locked up in the form of glacial ice, permafrost, or permanent snow. Groundwater and soil moisture account for 10.7 million km³. Freshwater lakes and marshlands hold about 0.1 million km³. Rivers, the most visible form of fresh water, account for 0.002 million km³ or about less than 0.01% of all forms of fresh water.
The major source of fresh water is evaporation off the surface of the oceans, approximately 505,000 km³ a year. Another 72,000 km³ evaporates from land surfaces annually. Approximately 80% of all precipitation (about 458,000 km³) falls on the oceans, the remaining 20% (119,000 km³ ) falls over land. The difference between precipitation onto land surfaces and evaporation from those surfaces is runoff and groundwater recharge at approximately 47,000 km³ per year.
Brazil is the country with the most renewable fresh water. Canada is third after Russia.
Ninety-nine percent of surface freshwater by volume is in lakes and only one percent in rivers.
Of all fresh water not locked up in ice caps or glaciers, some 20% is in areas too remote for humans to access and of the remaining 80% about three-quarters comes at the wrong time and place; in monsoons and floods; and is not always captured for use by people. The remainder is less than 0.08 of 1% of the total water on the planet.
Expressed another way, if all the earth's water were stored in a 5-litre container, available fresh water would not quite fill a tablespoon.
Although 60% of the world's population live in Asia, the continent has only 36% of the world's water resources.
At times, the flow is so low in some of the world's largest rivers; the Amu Darya and Syr Darya in central Asia, the Yellow River in China, the Colorado River in the United States, the Indus River between India and Pakistan; that they do not reach the sea.
The Aral Sea was once the world's fourth largest lake; now it's the site of aquatic ruin. It's lost two-thirds of its surface area, some 60,000 fishing jobs have been wiped out, and people living in the salty and toxic surroundings suffer from a variety of ailments.
The world's wetland area was halved during the 20^th century. In some locations wetlands are worth as much as $20,000 per hectare (0.01km³).
Annually, Canada's rivers discharge 105,000m³/s, 7% of the world's renewable water supply.
Almost 9%, or 89,163 km², of Canada's total area is covered by freshwater.
Approximately 60% of Canada's fresh water drains to the north, while 85% of the population lives along the southern border with the United States.
Canada has about 25% of the world's wetlands, the largest wetland area in the World
The largest river basin in Canada is the Mackenzie based on drainage area, discharge and length.
The Great Lakes are the largest system of fresh, surface water on earth, containing roughly 18 percent of the world supply.
Canada has more lake area than any other country in the world.

The most common causes of flooding in Canada are water backing up behind ice jams and the rapid melting of heavy winter snow cover, particularly when accompanied by rainfall. Heavy rainfall itself can also cause floods. The 1997 Red River flood in Manitoba caused damages estimated at approximately $815 million.