Microplastics, Forever Chemicals & How to Create Healthy Water for Coffee, with Niklas Ivarsson

0:00Yes, of a ballpark. How much plastic do you think you put in your body on an average on a no we two basis? A gram, a gram of plastic. Five grams per week, the equivalent to one credit card. Hello coffee lovers from around the world. You are now watching the Health First Coffee podcast. I'm your host Jordan River, along with my co-host, Ildi Revy, Chief Learning Officer of Peerity Coffee. And I want to thank you for tuning in again today. Today's episode is all about water quality. And seeing as how we produce a show all about coffee and health, water quality is easily one of the most important subjects that we can ever cover on this show. Our guest today is Nicholas Iverson. He's the president of Bluewater America Inc. And he's on a mission to create the cleanest, healthiest water possible. He's a long time specialty coffee educator and leader. And he's building water specifically for healthy coffee. Welcome to the show. How's it going Nicholas?

1:02Thank you guys so much for having me. It's an honor and it's a pleasure to be here. So listen for the first time. Or tell us about yourself. Tell us about your mission at Bluewater. And why it's so important to provide education around this subject to our audience and to everyone. Where should I start? A little bit about myself. Born and raised in Europe, Sweden. And got into the hospitality and coffee industry in early ages. Sweden wasn't big enough. I wanted a more exposure. I wanted to experience things around the world. So that took me to Canada. And I have been in the United States since 2007. And so where did Bluewater come into the picture? Bluewater is a water technology company. I joined Bluewater about a year and a half ago. It's a mission-driven organization, Bengt Richie, which is CEO and founder. He started his

2:05journey in, you know, actually in air. High performance air purification indoor because of the industrial era and air pollution. So what is the next global problem? It's water. It is micro and nanoplastic. It simply comes from our way of living. The convenience part. Look at your clothing. Anything that says poly on it is plastic. Go into your grocery store. The only real thing you see there is kind of the fresh bakery or the produce section. And still you have to put those produce in a plastic bag. That was one of the things. So what they wanted to do is create a system that could provide safe water anywhere in the world. And looking historically, statistically, and all the research on what's available in the market. Reverseal Moses is the only system that kind of extract

3:08close to everything. It's been a great system that addresses everything. There's just a couple of flaws from the original design. And it was that it just created so much wastewater. It was so wasteful. As putting it through this membrane, it could actually waste up to E percent. So when you push water through, it separates whatever gets stuck on the membrane. It goes into the drain and the rest goes out as pure and just pure H2O. And as the water boy would say, it's just something that's some good H2O. No, but so you set out on a mission to deliver a sustainable version of that. And superior Moses, what he meant is more or less a system that is reverseal Moses base, but it is the next generation and is more of an efficient way. From 80% wastewater up to,

4:16I think the average right now is probably 65% wastewater. It's still humongous. With our superior Moses technology, we are averaging anywhere from 20 to 30% wastewater. So you actually get out 70 to 80% of pure water from what you put in. And what a huge reduction. That is what I think is the most important thing is the less wastewater. Anyone that uses RO is already one because they're doing the right thing is just the sustainability aspect. Oh, okay. So talking about coffee specifically, there's a little bit of a split in the community when it comes to these dissolved solids and minerals in general. You've got the machine makers side, the people who make the machines that brew the coffee, and then you've got the tasteers side. Can you talk about that and how they don't really view minerals the same way? Well, the great thing is that I've been on both sides of the table. I think right now I'm on the third side of the table.

5:18I've been in an equipment manufacturer. I've been on the roaster side, but yes, absolutely. So looking at machines, all we want to do with machines is just deliver a water that does not harm and hurt the machine. If it's hard water, it creates scale. And that also counts, you need the minerals because you can't take everything out. You're going to need some minerals as a flavor carrier. And then it comes to the roasters. We're just ultimately providing the perfect environment of allowing the coffee to shine and actually showcase its true nature flavor compounds that is all right there. You mentioned I would love to talk about finding out about what's in your local municipality. Can we talk a little bit about this tap water database that you turned us on to? Yes, absolutely. So the number one, I always say, hey, test your water

6:21if you're on a certain submitted and go get a full report. But if you want to look at it, the ewwg.org. And during the zip code, which one did we issue here? Yeah, I had it at Charleston, South Carolina. And like you said, Nicholas, you can just punch in any zip code. So it's really interesting. It'll tell you how many people use the water. It'll tell you the source and how recently the test is. And then of course, how many contaminants? Yeah. And so there's a list of contaminants that exceed the environmental working groups, health guidelines. So there could be more, Nicholas, right? But these are the ones that are over the acceptable limit. Yep. So if we scroll down or click it, I think we could just see the directory there. So the first one, 47 times. What is it cool? Because you can you can click on it and it'll even give you a little breakdown of the contaminant, what it causes, where it's formed from. And most of these, it's really interesting because most of these are, I shouldn't say most of these. When I search different zip codes, what you find is that

7:23a lot of these are formed during the water treatment process. I expect a lot of like, I don't know, like lead contamination from industry or whatever. But no, this particular compound in a lot of these, it says right here, it's formed when chlorine or other disinfectants are used to treat drinking water and it creates all these break off compounds. So like you said, this one was found at 47 times the WG's health. So kind of we are, we're, we're treating one thing. And then you have the decide effects that comes with it. And then you need to find another treatment or another chemical to treat that side effects. Right. And so it's just cash trying to, we continue, continue, and find a band date to the band date to the band date to the band date. Yeah, that's exactly right. Chloriform. I knew I was sleepy. Really interesting. I highly recommend the ewwg.org slash tap water. It brings you right there. Unfortunately, in the municipal system today and the treatment

8:25chlorine that was, it's most common used. But in the 1990s, early 2000s, they, they needed a stronger disinfectant for bacteria to keep the water disinfected and not develop bacteria growth. They added something called chloramine. And that is ultimately just a nice word of a mixture of chlorine and ammonia. And regular carbon does not do anything to ammonia and the chlorine. So unfortunately, one third of the population in the US, all metropolitan areas, is estimated about I think is 111 or 113 million of Americans get water treated with chloramine. And that's not a number take lightly because any of those filters that you have

9:31standard does really not do anything to the ammonia. You need something treated at carbon. It's called catalytic carbon to address that. That's something you might check with your local municipality to find out if they use chlorine or chloramine. Right. Although, like you said, you want to be getting both out of there ideally. Yeah. So one of the things that when you're looking at the filtration, there's this different filtration that address certain things. You have a particle filtration, which just take, you know, sand, hair and all those things. A human hair is roughly about 75 to 80 microns. So just put that as a memory note. Micro filtration takes out microplastic, bacteria, and so forth. Then you have ultra filtration. Ultra filtration takes out viruses. And then you have non-offiltration. This is when we come up to the real, so non-offiltration is the closest you can get to R-O without wastewater.

10:34And non-offiltration takes out synthetic dyes, pharmaceutical residues. And then when it comes to reversal mosa, it's truly the only one that addresses the metal ions. They have the metals, lead arsenic mercury. And then of course, the 500 pound gorilla is the forever chemicals. You remember 80 micron for human hair, 75, 80 micron. So a R-O filtration brings down through a screen of 0.001 microns. And then superior mosa, what we do, we bring it down one step. So 0.001 to 0.001 is the range. And we use the, we use the heaviest because it is all about safety. Ultimately, TDS is just an easy way or a general idea of of total dissolve solubility. So

11:38anything that is conductive in your water, and we don't know if that's good, bad, or ugly. Sure. In terms of coffee, Il, do you correct me if I'm wrong, but the SCA shard, it gives a very wide range of TDS, but it doesn't tell you what it gives you guidelines on everything, but it has never broken it down to say, hey, I want this. And that is what what we are doing with blue water and our liquid remilization that I think is very unique that anyone with the R-O, you can have a blank canvas, you take everything out, but then you want to add something back into. So what we did, we developed a liquid mineral base that is including two of the human body force minerals. And that is the two mean flavor carriers, which is calcium and magnesium. So we have two blends currently, one called

12:42liquid rock, another one called coffee rock, depending on what you want out. Liquid rock was designed for human body, mother earth, and just with our core structure of hydration. So it has two parts calcium to one part magnesium. Calcium drives the body of the coffee, the length of the cup, and so forth, the magnesium. It is more front of the pallet, acidity, flurality, juiciness, and so forth. So we want to find the right balance. So the first one is just the general kick-ass water. It's great. It does amazing. And then the coffee rock was developed ultimately on request from the specialty coffee. And that was we want more floral, we want more of the brightness. We have this beautiful gauge gel from Colombia or Panama or wherever,

13:49or we have this beautiful processed Ethiopian or Canyon, depending on where you're at. This seems amazing coffee is everywhere. Think about 80, 85 plus scores that just have flavors in it that is so hard to detect. And if you put it in the right environment, you can really get these. So there's six parts magnesium to really highlight all the natural in the coffee to one part calcium. So it's going to be much shorter in the length of the cup, the body of the cup, and so forth. I would love to circle back, Jordan, to our fun facts about water. We live in this world of, you know, modern industrial and so many things entering into our water or municipal thing. So one of the things that is on the blue water mission is forever chemicals. Right? What, how many forever chemicals do you

14:54think we have recorded or is man made to define this forever chemical? That's hard to say. If I had to guess, I bet the numbers shockingly high, but if you just asked me that point blank, I'd say 50. Okay. So first of all, let's define a forever chemical. So if forever chemical is just a man made or human made chemical in any way shape or form that is considered forever just because nature or human body does not recognize it and cannot break it down. However, this year, we have seen some studies on some kimchi strings that are able to address not forever chemical with micro and nanoplastic, which is a different thing and a different conversation, but it's so exciting that we're doing all of these studies. So your wild guess is 50. So we recorded roughly over 15,000 man made forever chemicals. And you know, it's the common word is so many individuals.

16:04How many of these 15,000 do you think is currently regulated in our water municipal system and required testing and monitoring? I bet this one is going to be bad. I bet it's going to be, I bet you're going to be able to count it on one hand. Almost. One hand and one finger. No, six. Six. So out of 15,000 forever chemicals, it's six that are regularly. So when you hear a water system, all we're in in compliant or it's safe, it doesn't mean that everything has been tested. It just means that it is in compliant with what the organization are required them to test. And I think that's where we need to just look at it that we are in control what we put on our own body in our own body and on our own body. Look at eczema,

17:05dandruff hair, hair loss and so forth. A lot of this is what you put on your body, what you shower in. When you go to the tellroom and smells like a swimming pool, that is not healthy for you. I'm not, I can't say that, but I don't think that such strong exposure could be healthy for you with individual chemicals that is very harmful to you on his own. That's right. Okay, so we had PFAS, 15,000, six is regulated. The next one is micro-inana plastics in our convenience life. So just of a ballpark, how much plastic do you think you put in your body on an average on a week to a basis? Yes, by regular day life. Again, if you were just going to make me, make me guess, I would say, I'm going to go high, at this feels high to me, although I feel it's not going to be high enough, a gram, a gram of plastic. This is a great guess. Yeah. So just by regular

18:11life, five grams per week, the equivalent to one credit card. I just imagine you putting that on your weekly buffet. It's just like, I'm going to, this is what I'm going to consume this week. Five grams weekly. That is rockingly high. I thought I was going to be a little closer than that. That's wild. That's a lot of plastic. Yes. We hear micro-plastics and we don't think of the cumulative weight. Exactly. And you know, this is ripping a box, opening, or leaching from your, if you're putting it in that new microwave, it's just leaching, it's opening, fragments, it's it's any way shape or form. It is in our air. It's in our rain. It's no longer singing in the rain. It's literally in our rain and close and everything. Yes. So you're swimming in it. It is not a matter if it's there. It's basically how much is there and how, what can we do

19:13to address it. But I also have to say that modern nature has a very impressive way. So if we actually start caring and taking care of it, it's going to adjust and do well to us. But it needs to start with we giving the condition for our earth to do what it's supposed to be doing. That's right. We had the PFAS. We talked about we have the micro-plastic. How much we can see you, right? So if we have so many ferver chemicals, but we only need to test six of them, right? To be in compliance. 178 million Americans are suspected to be exposed from the testing all. It's 58% of the population. So it's 50%. Wow. So it's half the people. Yeah. And it actually increased from the last two years from last study. But we're not going in the right direction. And that's kind of a point. But 50% of the population could be potentially

20:16exposed to ferver chemical. And it is exposed where they found ferver chemical in all 50 states. So it's by the way, it is spots. But we can see a lot heavier where, you know, old agricultural pesticides, aquafers that have been contaminated and so forth. But that is kind of scary that we only test for six to be in compliance. But we still have 178 million Americans that are exposed to it. But with that said, it's you need to address. If you know it's there, at least now, you have the power to act on it. And, you know, the municipal system, you know, it was structured, the infrastructure was done for what was available at that time. It was not designed to kind of have all of these chemicals. So we kind of have a systems that is designed for

21:20historically, where we didn't have all of that. But we're putting our modern D product through it. And it can keep up. Yeah. Applying new problems to that old system that just can't handle. You know, and nature adapts so readily and heals itself so efficiently and effectively. And what occurs to me, Nicholas, is that a lot of that healing occurs through microbiology and microbes are at the center of that. You mentioned the recent study on kimchi and its effect on the human microplastic load and how those those microbes in the fermented kimchi can help cleanse your body of those. But you know what microbes need to thrive? Clean water. That's what they need. So the water piece is so important because that's what the microbes are going to need to do a lot of cleanup work in our bodies and in the earth. I'm just happy to be the spokesperson or middleman or kind of the messenger in this market and having the opportunity to really be able to keep my head up high and

22:22and be proud where we do that. And I'm not saying this everyone says it's just coffee. It's just water, but no, we are literally changing people's lives. Water is life. Water is life. And let's end on a positive note here. Because you're right, as you learn more about this and we become aware of the environmental pressures from things like this, it can be a little overwhelming sometimes and it can even make you feel a little fearful sometime. But there's a lot of hope for the future. And there's a lot of great work to being done by people like you. So tell me what your immediate next five-year mission is and what the future looks like if everything goes according to planet blue water. In the US, it's just the feedback has just been amazing. And I think there's never been more people not trusting the water they drink and either in the municipal or water bottles. So what you can do right now, any water company or

23:32local purveyor should have a good water solution. If that's blue water or anyone else, just look what's in your water treated accordingly. We do know that the majority of what's needed out there is reversal, no, this is treated. So we would love to have an opportunity because we think we're so efficient and this is the inability story. And then for any hospitality manufacturer or restaurants, it's just like you don't need to serve a European or an artisanal water. You can make your own in-house with ultimately zero environmental impact. Make a safe water straight out of your tap with an RO, re-minimize it, then you can really serve something amazing. But for people at home, you don't need two water bills. You don't need to do the municipal and then need to buy everything. You invest in a system that takes care of what you put on your body or in your body,

24:38and that covers it in everything. Either your filter or you become the filter. This was an awesome, awesome interview. Thank you for coming and teaching us everything from the RO stuff up to the magnisiums, effect on coffee and taste and the nano plastics. Just a really great episode all around. Thank you, Nicholas. Thank you guys so much for having me. Again, such an honor to be here, be a part of it. Then like I said, I'm just a messenger. We have a great, a lot of great companies are backing this and getting it out there. And to what do you guys are doing at Purity Coffee, just an education, and to get it out to your network, your viewers, and maybe I'll say it's knowledge is power. And when you know that is there, now you have the opportunity to make an impact. Absolutely. Well said, Nicholas. And you listeners, take it upon yourself. Now is the time to improve your water quality at home. I hope this episode inspired you. It's probably the number one thing that you could do for your personal health,

25:42take action today and fix up your water quality. So I hope you take up Nicholas and us on that offer and that challenge. But until next time, that's all for today. This has been the Health First Coffee Podcast. I've been Jordan River. Thank you to Nicholas Iverson. Thank you to LD Revy. And thank you, dear listener. We'll see you next time on the Health First Coffee Podcast.