Our Wassertipps app is based on two topics:
water hardness and nitrate content.
Who hasn't experienced this? A new flat, a new detergent, a new fully automatic coffee machine - the fundamental question of the fundamental question of water hardness arises. On the one hand, it may influence the flavour of beverages (e.g. tea - you can find information in our apps).
On the other hand, knowing the correct water hardness prevents over- or underdosing of detergents, for example. Overdosing is harmful to the environment, while underdosing may not clean the laundry thoroughly and can even damage the machine in the long term.
And let's be honest, when dosing, sometimes you use a little more, sometimes a little less, depending on how full the machine is or how dirty the laundry appears.
Usually too much, however, as the Öko-Institut e.V. found in a study for the company Miele in 2008. The study came to the conclusion that a household in Germany uses around 3.5 kg too much detergent every year due to incorrect dosing; extrapolated to all 41 million households in Germany alone, this amounts to 145 thousand tonnes that end up unused in waste water. And this does not even take into account the different water hardnesses.
In principle, you can find out the water hardness on the website or by calling the local authority, although experience has shown that both can sometimes be a little tedious.
But what about at home with parents, in-laws, in a holiday flat or in cities where the water quality varies greatly?
A few years ago, the discussion about water quality in Germany also began to gather pace. The reason: a significant increase in groundwater pollution caused by nitrate. A highly controversial topic, both in ecological terms and in our everyday lives.
Sooner or later, groundwater contamination by nitrate affects everyone. On the one hand, waterworks will have to upgrade with ever more sophisticated filter systems. This is a cost factor that will certainly have a negative impact on water prices. The legally stipulated limit value for nitrate in drinking water of 50 mg/l is already being reached in some municipalities, despite water treatment.
On the other hand, a long-term excessive intake of nitrate in drinking water, but also through foods such as various types of vegetables, can lead to health problems and illnesses.
In recent years, various studies from Europe and the USA have established a direct link between an increased nitrate content in drinking water and various types of bowel cancer, as well as cancers of the bladder, ovaries, kidneys and thyroid gland.
Other studies were able to establish a direct link between infant malformations (cleft palate and spina bifida) if the mothers consumed nitrate-containing drinking water during pregnancy. Particularly noteworthy in many studies was the relatively low level of nitrate, which has already led to an increase in illnesses>.
If you would like to know more about this, you can find further information on our study page or in our apps.
Both topics prompted us to carry out extensive research and water value enquiries. We realised that there was no freely available, comprehensive, geographically accurate and up-to-date collection of data on water hardness and nitrate content in Germany. The existing solutions are imprecise and rarely up-to-date due to the way in which data is collected and allocated (voluntary entry of local water hardness and localisation via the postcode of the town or city). In addition, they only cover a few (larger) cities.
As water suppliers are rarely guided by postcode boundaries, but above all have to take local conditions (different altitudes, rivers, railway lines, major roads) into account when dividing up their supply zones, an exclusive allocation by postcode makes no sense.
If you want to know more about this and how we proceeded instead, take a look at the page Data.
Even the free basic version of our app contains location-based the display of water hardness and nitrate content as well as general information on the subject of water.
