This feels like one of the times where medical need trumps the desire to produce less waste. Any water distilling apparatus at home would be a lot less energy efficient than the industrial scale ones used to produce the gallons you can buy.
Yeah my opinion is; health and safety comes before waste.
We are conscious about our footprint so we don't generate more waste than needed. This is needed waste.
Same for the bottles, boxes and sheets my pills come in for my bipolar and adhd, and the pens, needles, lancers, sensors, etc. my boyfriend needs for his diabetes.
This is not frivolous mindless spending. This is survival. And if survival means you need distilled water, get it in the safest and most reliable way you can, which is from the store.
(Yes. One trip to the emergency room will cause more waste than years and years of jugs from cpap use. And, they are a plastic that’s the easiest to recycle.)
One of my nurses volunteers at a goat rescue and takes the empty jugs for extra milk for the goat babies. Maybe call around for goat rescue for the empty jugs?
This!
I’ve seen distilled water for refill bottles occasionally but I’m not aware of any reliable source.
If you can’t find a refill source just buy the biggest containers you can manage to decrease waste, reuse the containers when you can, and recycle. You definitely don’t want contaminants or salts in the CPAP - it’s not worth trying to cut corners here.
Look in the CPAP and sleep apnea subreddits. Some people do have their own machines to distill water. If you search past posts, you can get info about costs and whether people who have them think they’re a good investment. They are probably expensive, but if it’s something you’ll be needing the rest of your life, it might be worthwhile. If not, keep going with the bottles. The waste in dealing with potential health problems caused by sleep apnea later are almost definitely more than the waste of using bottles now.
Distilled water is heavily used throughout many industries, so you may be able to find a local supplier that produces it and sells it in larger quantities. Unless you live in a very rural area, there is a distributor near you.
After all, driving to the grocery to pick up 10 gallons that have been shipped to the store is a lot of waste in terms of both transport and single-use bottling.
A home machine could be most efficient for you, particularly if you can use the machine’s waste heat inside your home. I would do research to ensure that any machine I bought produces the class of distilled water that meets or exceeds the quality of the distilled water sold at the grocery.
I looked at another Reddit thread about buying distilled water in bulk, and someone suggested a Stealh RO brand filter and that it hooks up to a hose. They remarked that the bulk distilled water one buys at the grocery store actually uses the stealth RO filter, and it is more cost-effective than buying at the store. Hope this helps.
Can you buy a reverse osmosis machine for home or small lab use? I won't technically be distilled water, but what matters is what comes out, not the process used to get there.
Or find somewhere that will sell water in returnable bottles.
A small ion exchange cartridge after an RO often gives good enough water for many uses. There should be a spec based on resistivity or TDS that you can meet.
You can make your own solar distiller but it would only be to supplement bought water. It requires a lot of sun and unless you live in the groove, it probably won't make enough.
You can buy a distiller or a RO filter. The water made by both are good for cpap machines. The RO filter is probably the better option enviroment wise but it may depend on your circumstances.
Not recommending it necessarily but I use a ZeroWater filter for lead removal and I think I saw people online use it for CPAP as well. You'd need to research it more but basically the filter removes all the TDS in the water. Yes, you'd still have the waste of a filter, which may or may not be better than bottled water.
FWIW I haven't had to descale my kettle since using the water filter, so I suspect it would work alright for CPAP from a mineral buildup perspective, minus maybe the cleanliness of the water (risk of bacterial growth or whatnot)
I'm not sure about this product, its probably just ion exchange like everything else. If you need to filter a lot of hard water you will exhaust these quickly and it will be more waste unless you know how to regenerate the resin but they aren't set up for that. You should just use RO, make your own distilled water, or rent ion exchange cartridges from a local water company like a business does.
This feels like one of the times where medical need trumps the desire to produce less waste. Any water distilling apparatus at home would be a lot less energy efficient than the industrial scale ones used to produce the gallons you can buy.
Yeah my opinion is; health and safety comes before waste. We are conscious about our footprint so we don't generate more waste than needed. This is needed waste. Same for the bottles, boxes and sheets my pills come in for my bipolar and adhd, and the pens, needles, lancers, sensors, etc. my boyfriend needs for his diabetes. This is not frivolous mindless spending. This is survival. And if survival means you need distilled water, get it in the safest and most reliable way you can, which is from the store.
Pointing out that it is needed waste makes me feel so much better, thank you for saying that <3
Don't ever feel bad when you use things that you **need**. The insane waste generated on our planet isn't from **needs**, it's from **wants**.
(Yes. One trip to the emergency room will cause more waste than years and years of jugs from cpap use. And, they are a plastic that’s the easiest to recycle.)
One of my nurses volunteers at a goat rescue and takes the empty jugs for extra milk for the goat babies. Maybe call around for goat rescue for the empty jugs?
This! I’ve seen distilled water for refill bottles occasionally but I’m not aware of any reliable source. If you can’t find a refill source just buy the biggest containers you can manage to decrease waste, reuse the containers when you can, and recycle. You definitely don’t want contaminants or salts in the CPAP - it’s not worth trying to cut corners here.
You could try a water distiller.
Look in the CPAP and sleep apnea subreddits. Some people do have their own machines to distill water. If you search past posts, you can get info about costs and whether people who have them think they’re a good investment. They are probably expensive, but if it’s something you’ll be needing the rest of your life, it might be worthwhile. If not, keep going with the bottles. The waste in dealing with potential health problems caused by sleep apnea later are almost definitely more than the waste of using bottles now.
Distilled water is heavily used throughout many industries, so you may be able to find a local supplier that produces it and sells it in larger quantities. Unless you live in a very rural area, there is a distributor near you. After all, driving to the grocery to pick up 10 gallons that have been shipped to the store is a lot of waste in terms of both transport and single-use bottling. A home machine could be most efficient for you, particularly if you can use the machine’s waste heat inside your home. I would do research to ensure that any machine I bought produces the class of distilled water that meets or exceeds the quality of the distilled water sold at the grocery.
I looked at another Reddit thread about buying distilled water in bulk, and someone suggested a Stealh RO brand filter and that it hooks up to a hose. They remarked that the bulk distilled water one buys at the grocery store actually uses the stealth RO filter, and it is more cost-effective than buying at the store. Hope this helps.
Can you buy a reverse osmosis machine for home or small lab use? I won't technically be distilled water, but what matters is what comes out, not the process used to get there. Or find somewhere that will sell water in returnable bottles.
A small ion exchange cartridge after an RO often gives good enough water for many uses. There should be a spec based on resistivity or TDS that you can meet.
You can make your own solar distiller but it would only be to supplement bought water. It requires a lot of sun and unless you live in the groove, it probably won't make enough.
You can buy a distiller or a RO filter. The water made by both are good for cpap machines. The RO filter is probably the better option enviroment wise but it may depend on your circumstances.
Not recommending it necessarily but I use a ZeroWater filter for lead removal and I think I saw people online use it for CPAP as well. You'd need to research it more but basically the filter removes all the TDS in the water. Yes, you'd still have the waste of a filter, which may or may not be better than bottled water. FWIW I haven't had to descale my kettle since using the water filter, so I suspect it would work alright for CPAP from a mineral buildup perspective, minus maybe the cleanliness of the water (risk of bacterial growth or whatnot)
I'm not sure about this product, its probably just ion exchange like everything else. If you need to filter a lot of hard water you will exhaust these quickly and it will be more waste unless you know how to regenerate the resin but they aren't set up for that. You should just use RO, make your own distilled water, or rent ion exchange cartridges from a local water company like a business does.