Protect Plus Creates Municipal Water Division To Meet Lead Crisis Head On
HICKORY, N.C.-Â Protect Plus, a nationwide supplier of water and air filtration products, today announced the creation of a new Municipal Water Division to better service the needs of water municipalities facing the growing lead crisis.
In the wake of the Flint, Michigan drinking water crisis, increased attention has focused on aging infrastructures in cities across the country. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates as many as 2,000 towns are facing similar problems. As a result, water district leaders are scrambling for a short-term fix while they make plans and adjust budgets to update millions of miles of old pipes.
“We’ve been getting a lot of calls for our lead-reducing water filters,” says John Genter, Vice President of Protect Plus’s new Municipal Water Division. “Traditionally, we’ve sold our lead-reducing water pitchers and faucet mount filters through retail stores, such as Walmart. Recently though, we’ve been shipping our products to municipalities that provide lead filtration at the tap while they fix the bigger issues. It just made sense to create a division to better serve the municipal buyers. They’ve got a lot on their plate and we want to make it as easy as possible for them.”
Protect Plus is already working with water districts across the United States, including Cincinnati, Detroit, Milwaukee, Washington, and Providence, R.I. to provide a variety of lead-reduction products certified to NSF Standard 53, including easy-to-use pitchers and easy-to-install faucet mount filters. It is one of very few companies to achieve such respected certifications in these product categories. Protect Plus water filtration products are certified by the Water Quality Association (WQA) and/or NSF, depending on the category.
There are two types of lead found in drinking water: soluble and particulate. In simple terms, soluble lead gets into drinking water from the soil, in ground water, or due to industrial pollution. Particulate lead gets into drinking water by flaking off lead pipes or paint. As the U.S. infrastructure ages, old lead pipes are leaching particulate lead. Even if water leaves a filtration plant with no lead, the pipes between the municipality and the homes can foul the water.
Surprisingly, it is much harder to filter out particulate lead than soluble lead. Protect Plus is one of only a few companies to do so, in products such as:
- DuPont® Traditional Water Filter Pitcher
- DuPont® Faucet-Mount System
- DuPont® Quick-Twist 2-Stage Under Sink System
- DuPont® Quick-Twist 3-Stage Under Sink System, which also removes bacteria, viruses and cysts
- DuPont® Reverse Osmosis Under Sink System
Protect Plus, headquartered in Hickory, North Carolina, manufactures and distributes air and water filtration products all over the United States. In addition to the above products, the company offers other DuPont® products under license as well as other in-house and licensed brands, such as Arm & Hammer®. For more information about the company, go to www.protectplus.com.
DuPont® is a trademark or registered trademark of E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company and is used under license by Protect Plus, LLC.
The ARM & HAMMER name, logo, and distinctive orange trade dress are trademarks of Church & Dwight Co., Inc.