Asklemmy

UK. Yip. Water "hardness" varies across the country which means people usually prefer the taste of the water in the region they grow up in. Other than all the leaky underground pipes and lack of investment in a privatised service, UK water is actaully very good.

As long as you don't live in Flint, USA water is generally safe to drink from the tap.

In Germany the tap water has, by law, higher quality standards than bottled water. So yes, you can drink the tap water without boiling.

I'm from Melbourne Australia but currently live in the San Francisco Bay Area. Both areas have drinkable tap water without having to boil it.

Here in Brazil, you better boil everything. Yet it's still dangerous in some places.

Hong Kong: safe to drink from the tap. I filter it for taste and do not boil it.

Here is a recent government test, which I think is a good complement to asking what people do or do not do.

In the US, tap water is regulated to higher standards than bottled! In the rare cases where there is a problem with it, everyone gets notified, for example http://www.msdh.state.ms.us/msdhsite/_static/23,0,148.html.

NYC prides itself on having really good water, both for local food production, and just for taste. NYC did this by buying up land around its reservoirs further inland and building a large aqueduct system. The water isn't even filtered!

That said, some locations have unpalatable water, such as towns near the ocean that get their water from nearby wells.

In Germany, Luxembourg and Norway I was drinking it straight from the tap. In Germany specifically, tap water is more regulated than bottled water you buy from the shop, making it safer to drink.

When I was living in Africa (Liberia, Nigeria, Tanzania, Madagascar, Kenya) as well as now in China, tap water is generally considered unsafe for consumption, no matter if you boil it or not, due to the possibilities of heavy metal poisoning. At home I tested my water through a lab (twice with ~24 months in between) and it's free of any dangerous metals or chemicals so I use it for cooking and for my coffee machine, but even though it's supposedly drinkable I wouldn't do so - neither boiled nor fresh.

Same applies for HK by the way, even though you don't have as much heavy industry poisoning the water supplies, the proximity to Shenzhen alone means that there's gotta be a ton of toxic fumes washing down that ends up in your freshwater supply. And while boiling gets rid of bacteria and stuff, many carcinogens are largely unaffected.

Joining the choir from Italy - we too drink without boiling.

I’m from Scotland which has some of the best tap water, so yeah, I drink it without boiling.

I'm in northern BC Canada. I drink out of the tap, sometimes without even using a glass

Seattle, United States - we drink without boiling although a water district in the area has semi-annual boil water orders for e. Coli and stuff. I've lived in water districts where the tap water tastes funny and lots of people put it through a cheap filter, but I've never minded the flavor.

Basically, the default here is that you don't need to boil or filter your water.... But sometimes contamination happens and then everyone freaks out for a week or so.

Tapwater in Iceland is safe to drink. Went there a couple of years ago and spoke to the locals regarding bottled water. They told me that the bottled water is the 'same' water I get from the tap.

In France I once went to a water museum, yes those exist. They told us that tapwater is safe to drink and that we should stop buying bottled water.

I live in The Netherlands myself and I don't know better then drinken water from the tap. I would go as far as saying that we are among the countries with the best tapwater in the world.

Spain here, tap water is safe for drinking everywhere, though you might have some issues in small old towns. But generally you will not contract any illnesses nor have any health issues, 100% guarranteed

UK checking in here - straight from the tap is perfectly safe. I still put it through a filter though because I like the taste and it makes me feel fancy.

Germany here. My family and I drink tap-water all the time. No problems. Sometimes the Water could be contaminated with certain bacteria, but thats rare and the local government will warn you.

In NZ, the only time I've boiled water is when we had an earthquake that screwed up a bunch of stuff, including the water & sewage pipes.

I live in America (Minnesota), and tap water has always been safe to drink in my lifetime. There are other places in the US where it’s discovered that the tap water has been unsafe, but that’s generally seen as a huge scandal and a public health emergency, and culprits are tracked down.

It’s my impression that people nowadays drink a lot of filtered water, either through a water tap on their refrigerator that has built-in filtration, or through a pitcher with a built-in filter. I believe people mostly do this for flavor reasons, or out of an abundance of caution rather than any real, concrete concern over the safety of the tap water.

In Minneapolis, every spring there’s typically an algae bloom that makes the tap water taste like vegetation for a few weeks, and that’s gross, but I believe it’s safe. That’s the worst tap water experience I’ve had. When I was a kid, I remember being told that the tap water up at the family cabin was so hard (rich with minerals) that it could make someone constipated, but that sounds like nonsense to me now.

Interestingly, there are places in the US where there’s more lithium in the water than in other places, and studies have been done that show that people in those areas are a little happier (less incidence of self harm, crime, etc.)! So sometimes, the tap water is even beneficial 😜

Here in the US, tap water is safe to drink, but its "hardness" (that is, mineral content) can vary even between adjacent municipalities. Harder tap might taste "bad" or "off," especially if you're not used to it, but it's actually healthier because of all the magnesium/calcium/whatever.

A lot of people use filtration devices (such as Brita pitchers) to improve the taste, but I don't know anyone who would refuse to drink tap.

Absolutely. We have outstanding tap water here in the PNW. It tastes better than bottled water and is crystal clear.

In Canada, I know people from Hong Kong who still boil water before drinking. They have been in Canada for 40+ years, have seen everyone around them drink tap water, and yet hang on to this ritual of boiling copious amounts of water.

Eastern US here. Definitely can drink without boiling. I do filter it, though. I'm more concerned about metals and particulates than pathogens.

Drank tap water from the faucet for 35 years. Broke down and bought a Breta filter just for the heck of it and never looked back. US citizen btw

Hell to do the no. The heavy metals alone would either kill me from anemia or make me go insane. It's bottled water for us in Mexico, unfortunately. :/ Those saying you can safely drink water from the tap in certain countries.. are you sure? Have you measured it yourself? Even some of the bottled water I ran some tests on back in the day were iffy.

I am from Singapore, so I am used to drinking straight from the tap without boiling. In school, we just drink from the taps, or water cooler (which probably have gone through a particulate filter).

When I moved to the UK, I was also drinking from the tap. But I did noticed that there is a lot of scummy residue in the kettle after I boiled water for making tea. That was probably from the hard water in London area. So, if I am making tea, I would use filter water for the kettle. But i won't think twice about drinking straight from the tap still.

Murican here: I only boil if there's a boil alert, but I always run tap water through a carbon or ceramic filter even though tap water is supposed to be regulated and safe to drink. I think it just tastes better and I am a little mistrustful given disasters like Flint Michigan.

I think almost everywhere in Europe you can drink tap water (my 2 cents from France)

Europe, slovakia tap water is drinkable but the taste differs from city to city i think usualy vilages and tiny towns have better tasting water

Sweden. Very good water here, people drink from tap.

I live in the pretty rural u.s. and my water is pumped up from an underground water table, a well that may or may not contain high traces of any number of metals, minerals, or toxic substances, and it's important to have it tested.

I get my drinking water in refillable 5 gal jugs, 2 at a time, from a machine that has pretty intense filters, iirc. So it's pretty much filtered tap water.

A filtration system would be pretty expensive outside of a basic sediment filter, which I have. Showering is fine with my tap water. Drinking it is probably fine too tbh, and I do it once in a while. Though I try to be conscious about my water usage, cause digging a deeper well is out of my power, money wise.

In some cities, there is lead in the water due to infrastructure incompetence, and straight malicious bad actors.

That's not a problem in my home city, and the tap is largely fine to drink.

Yes. Canada

In NL, the public water company pulls their water literally from the exact same springs as the expensive bottled waters (no joke). So our water is exactly the same.

Australia- Safe to drink. The water is chlorinated and fluoridated (for dental health).

I'm not 100% sure if the water is fluoridated across the whole country or just in my state

I live in a major Italian city, I'm well over fifty, and I've always drunk unfiltered water straight from the tap without boiling. Some Italians apparently don't like the taste of tap water but it's still safe to drink it unfiltered and unboiled in nearly all the country.

I've lived in Milan (Italy) London (UK) and Rethymno (Greece) tap water is safe to drink in all of them, extremely good in Milan just straight up, good in London but with a lot of limescale so we filtered it for taste reasons, and the same as London in Rethymno.

Most first world countries will issue boil warnings when there may be a necessary reason. Ie) water main work or other contamination.

Iceland should be fine. In fact, I think they have some of the cleanest water around.

The thing about living in an undeveloped countries is that you don't have to worry about that sort of thing.. I'm pretty fucking sure a billion things will get me before contaminates water does.