Asklemmy

Lemmy isn't blocked in Hong Kong? Oh I guess its much more difficult since they'll have to block all lemmy instances.

Anyways, here in the United States of America, tap water is safe to drink, except in certain places like Flint, Michigan, but thats more of a lead pipe issue than a germ issue. I regularly drink water directly out of the tap, I don't have any health issues that result from drinking water.

In Indonesia, the tap water is not drinkable. Some gets their water from a nation-owned Drinking Water Company (PAM; Perusahaan Air Minum).

The situation is similar, they contain plenty of Chlorine to prevent bacteria from growing. But the distribution system might not be the cleanest. So usually people buy gallons of mineral water and put them into a dispenser.

Some others, takes their tap water from groundwater, pump it into a water tank, and use them. It is not drinkable either.

At home I use Reverse Osmosis dispenser from the groundwater, and it goes through a reminalisation process after the filtration process. I’ve been drinking with this setup for over 15 years now.

Illinois, US. tap water has always been safe to drink wherever I've lived in this state. I've only been under a boil order a couple times in my life. That being said, I do filter my tap water otherwise it tastes strange to me

Yep, in the Netherlands we drink tap water all the time. No reason to boil it, except for tea of coffee of course.

No boiling, but I bought a filter after listening to a story about PFAS.

It's super strange for me to only drink bottled water/filtered abroad.

I've visited Peru and when I said to locals that we drink tap water directly they just didn't believe. It was unthinkable to them. And the bottled water was not cheap there...

I'm Portuguese

I'm from 🇵🇭, particularly Davao City (southern part of the country).

Tap water is drinkable here although there are water bottles available.

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.

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.

Dublin, Ireland here. Always drank water straight from the tap. Unless there is some kind of issue with the water system in your area, then a notice will be put out to tell people to boil water before drinking.

Yes of course it's safe. I drink filtered water from our fridge, but tap is perfectly fine too. I'm from Europe btw.

northern USA and we have some of the cleanest tap water in the country. Drink it all day from the tap you will never get sick from it, just tastes like nice water.

Water? Like from the toilet? :O

(j/k)

In the United States, it is a little bit different.

There are "standards" that water quality has to live up to. Do these standards actually meet the criteria for safe drinkable tap water? Not always. This is evident in places like Flint, Michigan and other poorer urban areas.

Some of the tap water can be so bad that people wouldn't dare to drink it even after boiling.

In some areas, the tap water quality is wonderful.

Here is a relatively decent source about the topic as it pertains to the USA. https://wisevoter.com/state-rankings/best-tap-water-in-the-us/#:~:text=The%20ten%20states%20with%20the,%2C%20South%20Dakota%2C%20and%20Nevada.

The long story short here, is certain places like Hawaii have extremely clean tap. Other places, like Texas, are notorious for having numerous water quality violations.

It falls down to each individual State and City for maintaining the standards that were set. In my opinion, it it just an easy way for them to waive liability at the end of the day.

X.

The further I searched, the more it seems to me that in developed countries (like US, Canada and the above examples), tap water is safe to drink directly. Is that true? Do you drink tap water without boiling?

Yes. It's a bit of a scandal when that's not true. (Canada here)

And to my surprise, I checked the Water Supplies Department website and notice it asserts that tap water in Hong Kong is potable, like many well-developed countries and regions.

Boiling it has to be "force of habit", then. I wonder how long it's been potable. I'm guessing mainland China is mostly boil-first.

I’m in Australia and have never boiled tap water before. Sometimes during major storms or flooding you get a boil water alert but these are usually advisory and monitoring shows that in most cases the water is still within legal limits. Of course though you should still boil the water if an alert does go out.

I live in Vietnam and tap water is always boiled before drinking. Our tap water sucks.

I grew up on well water and was used to drinking from the garden hose when working out in the yard; but thats southern US for ya.

Now days, jus fill a bottle from the tap and don't really put much thought to it.

France : we drink tap water directly without any issue. People who drink bottled water is because they dislike the taste of tap water where they live.

Australian here, I grew up drinking tap water without boiling it but since I married my wife who is Chinese, I must drink it after it was boiled. It's good for the healthy.

Finnish here and the tap water here is one of the cleanest in the world, so yeah, I drink straight from the tap.

New Zealand, we drink it from the tap although some claim to dislike it depending on which part of the country your in, personally I think they're a bit too fussy

Canadian here, drinking water right of the tap.

I am in Japan and have no issues with tap water here, used to drink it regularly.

I live closer to Mt. Fuji now and go get spring water from the mountain weekly instead. There's a basin at a shrine nearby that collects it and is free for people to take. No issues with the tap water, but this water tastes a lot better.

US. The tap water is safe to drink. Occasionally a metro area will have problems and issue a boil order, telling people to boil tap water before drinking, but this is rare. Some areas have problems with lead contamination due to aging infrastructure, but this too is uncommon in the modern day.

Spaniard here. I've been drinking unboiled tap water since I was a kid. It's perfectly safe to do that.

Finland has all around signs for foreigners that the tap water is not only drinkable, but very high quality. https://yle.fi/a/3-10303369

But for some unfathomable reason, maybe to push more expensive drinks, many restaurants charge for tap water. Except they do not tell it in advance, you just get surprised by it on the bill and swear never to go that place again.

Austria here, I drink tap water without boiling all the time without thinking twice about it. Pretty much in the entire EU I feel safe doing so.

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.

I live in the great lakes region of Canada and our tap water is totally safe

Here is Jamaica it is safe to drink the tap water without boiling.

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 South Florida. The tap water in my area is safe. I drink it without boiling or filtering.