How safe is tap water?

[pablo_aka_god]

I live in Buenos Aires, Argentina. it's a big city and government claims water quality is drinkable. I think they do a pretty good job however how safe is it in the long term to drink tap water in any major city and are water filters or bottled water actually better or it's just marketing?

[Rigel]

Smell it. Does it smell like you wanna drink it? Of course you should investigate more than this but it’s an easy way to tell if it’s really bad. It shouldn’t smell like a pool but there’s more to it that you can’t know by smell.

[julianszw]

 

On 3/8/2023 at 7:31 PM, pablo_aka_god said:

I live in Buenos Aires, Argentina. it's a big city and government claims water quality is drinkable. I think they do a pretty good job however how safe is it in the long term to drink tap water in any major city and are water filters or bottled water actually better or it's just marketing?

I live In Buenos Aires and I never drink tap water. The taste is disgusting and we live in one of the most polluted countries in the world. 

[Leo Gura]

You shouldn't drink tap water even from 1st world countries. There is no such thing as safe tap water.

Edited August 15, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Miguel1]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

You shouldn't drink tap water even from 1st world countries. There is no such thing as safe tap water.

Finland might be the only exception. Or am I being naive?

 

[How to be wise]

9 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

You shouldn't drink tap water even from 1st world countries. There is no such thing as safe tap water.

Virtually everyone drinks tap water, and they’re fine.

[tuku747]

You'd better bless the water you drink

You're not drinking water

You're drinking consciousness

[TheAlchemist]

9 hours ago, Migue Lonas said:

Finland might be the only exception. Or am I being naive?

 

They have done tests where they compared bottled water to tapwater in Finland and the tapwater was considerably cleaner with less chemicals and microbes.

Most of the tap water comes from natural or semi-natural groundwater sources. I think it is about as good as tapwater can be. Also, many municipalities publish reports online on the levels of different chemicals detected in the tapwater weekly/monthly which you can check. But I think it's up to the same standard in most of the Nordics and also a few other countries..

Edited August 15, 2023 by TheAlchemist

[undeather]

12 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

You shouldn't drink tap water even from 1st world countries. There is no such thing as safe tap water.

That's nonsense. Tap water in high income EU-countries (Finland, Switzerland, Austria..) is usually way cleaner than any bottled or filtered variant  you can purchase on the market. I live in a region where the tap water get's bottled and sold as "healing remedy" throughout the world (also called "Granderwasser")

Edited August 15, 2023 by undeather

[sholomar]

I mean, I respect Leo's opinion most of the time but he's mostly wrong in this case. Tap water when living in a modern house with copper, PEX, or PVC plumbing can be tested for safety, for things like chemicals and dissolved solids and there's no harm in drinking it. It might have levels of chlorine or choloramines in it from the process of treating it that you can filter with a cheap faucet water filter, but beyond that it's perfectly drinkable and safe.

They do like to add fluoride to it for no good reason (along with using Bromine in foods), so every once in a while, take an iodine supplement... something weak like sea kelp, not super strong stuff like Iodoral.  Iodine will displace the Bromine and Fluorine.

Generally speaking western governments like the US and Europe have good safety standards when it comes to tap water in the modern era.  When in doubt, order a water testing kit online.

You can also install undersink reverse osmosis systems, but they do produce wastewater of a ratio of around 4 gallons to every 1 gallon of treated. They also remove minerals from the water that are naturally occurring.

Edited August 15, 2023 by sholomar

[D2sage]

Depends highly on the city and country. I measured the tap water here and the pH is between 7,7–8,7.

The water comes from a lake so it is probably safe as it did not have any chlorine either.  No PFAS in the tap water was found neither.

On 8/15/2023 at 9:48 AM, Migue Lonas said:

Finland might be the only exception. Or am I being naive?

In Sweden you got surface water in the tap as well from lakes, purified without chemicals.

But to get the best and safest water you can go to Mörarp with a bucket and get spring water.

Spring water is naturally purified by nature and is alkaline. WIsh they pumped the water from there but that might be a problem for the ecosystem.

In USA the tap water is probably unsafe and should only be used to brush your teeth.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4389999/#:~:text=Conclusions,water from public water supplies.

Edited August 17, 2023 by D2sage

[dualnon]

On 15/08/2023 at 6:20 PM, Leo Gura said:

You shouldn't drink tap water even from 1st world countries. There is no such thing as safe tap water.

How do you clean your drinking water? Have you found a way to remove forever chemicals and hormones?

[Sigrun]

On 8/15/2023 at 8:20 AM, Leo Gura said:

You shouldn't drink tap water even from 1st world countries. There is no such thing as safe tap water.

That's a very strong statement, care to elaborate on the main points that led you to this conclusion?

[Leo Gura]

On 8/15/2023 at 11:50 AM, undeather said:

That's nonsense. Tap water in high income EU-countries (Finland, Switzerland, Austria..) is usually way cleaner than any bottled or filtered variant  you can purchase on the market. I live in a region where the tap water get's bottled and sold as "healing remedy" throughout the world (also called "Granderwasser")

This is absurd. Bottled water is run through RO filters. It makes no sense to run your entire house's water supply through RO filters. This would be very wasteful of resources. Your toilet water in Europe is not RO water. Tap water is toilet water.

Edited August 18, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Girzo]

@Leo Gura bottled water in my country runs through no filters. 

[Cocolove]

@undeather @Leo Gura maybe not cleaner but healthier.

RO is not healthy, it just gets rid of the bad stuff. I drank it for a few years but you don't want to do that long term. Better to find some source of uncontaminated spring water that has all the minerals in the right ratios and molecular structures

[undeather]

8 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

This is absurd. Bottled water is run through RO filters. It makes no sense to run your entire house's water supply through RO filters. This would be very wasteful of resources. Your toilet water in Europe is not RO water. Tap water is toilet water.

It's pretty easy to find out. The water we have here in Austria, especially in my hometown has equal or lower concetrantions of nitrades, pesticides, drug-residues & other chemicals than most bottled versions.

This has been proven by numerous independent tests. 
 

[Leo Gura]

I would not trust an unfiltered spring source. It could easily get polluted at any time.

Edited August 26, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Jason Actualization]

You can enter your zip code here to identify the local contaminants that you have to contend with: https://www.ewg.org/tapwater/

Tap water is absolutely unfit for human consumption, there are about 50 pharmaceuticals that are renally metabolized and, by extension, end up in the toxic water supply, ethinyl estradiol (birth control) not least of which.

I use a countertop distiller to render molecularly pure H2O, which is effectively rainwater minus air pollution, i.e., the purest possible water on the planet: vapor distillation is the way to go. For folks concerned about the absence of minerals/electrolytes, the amount found in even the best spring water is still drops in the ocean compared to what a properly formulated, nutritious diet will confer one with. Long story short, relying on your drinking water to satisfactorily address your micronutrient needs is not well founded.