this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2023
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For context, I live in Hong Kong where most people drink tap water after boiling first. Some may install water filter but may still boil the water. Very few drink bottle water unless they're outside and too lazy to bring their own bottles.

Now, I'm researching whether I can drink tap water in Iceland (I'm going there in August), and while it looks like the answer is affirmative, almost no web article mention whether I need to boil the water first. People in Japan (a country I've visited a few times) also seems to be used to drink tap water directly without boiling.

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?

It sounds like a stupid question but I just can't believe what I saw. I think I experienced a cultural shock.

Edit: wow, thanks so much for the responses and sorry if I didnt reply to each one of you but I'll upvote as much as as I can. Never thought so many would reply and Lemmy is a really great community.

2nd Edit: So in conclusion, people from everywhere basically just drink water straight out of tap. 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.

However, as the majority of Hong Kong people are living in high-rise buildings, a small amount of residual chlorine is maintained in the water to keep it free from bacterial infection during its journey in the distribution system. Therefore it is recommended to boil the water so that chlorine dissipates.

So, in short, I actually do not need to boil the water unless I hate chlorine smell and taste. But I guess I'll just continue this old habit/tradition as there's no harm in doing so.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Australia here, yes most people drink it without boiling but it depends a little what region you’re in. Some bits of the fat north or some island towns, you may be better off boiling it. Lots of people in the city use built in filter taps but I kind of write that off as con job.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] average650 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Our water is tested yearly and the reports provided to us with the specific locations reports. There's a handful throughout our town.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

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

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Yes. Canada

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

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

[–] Anticorp 7 points 1 year ago (3 children)

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

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Argentinian here, depends on the region of the country, in most places it's safe to drink tap water although it usually has too much chlorine or in small rural cities like mine sometimes there's a bacteria leak on the water so we prefer to buy bottled water

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[–] enshu 7 points 1 year ago

I live in the Netherlands and we drink tap water without boiling.

[–] ARNiM 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

In Indonesia, the tap water is not drinkable. Some get 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, pool them into the house's distribution pipe, 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.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm in Canada and we drink from the tap.

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[–] teflocarbon 6 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Spainiard here. You can drink tap water everywhere (that's connected to the drinking water network, obviously), but there are better tasting waters than others. Madrid's water is bad, Barcelona's is atrocious (I don't know anyone living there that doesn't buy bottled water, it even gives weird flavours when cooking), but other places are nicer. My town's water is awesome, I just fill up bottles from the tap and put them in the fridge for easy cold water and laugh at the camacus.

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[–] whatsinaname 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I have been to Iceland recently and tap water is absolutely fine to drink directly and preferred. No one there buys water. Just make sure you drink the cold water and not the hot one as the hot is from natural thermal springs so may contain some minerals I belive. Just carry your own bottles and you can fill up the cold water from anywhere, even restaurants will refill free.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

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

[–] psychothumbs 6 points 1 year ago

The line between a developed and undeveloped country is whether you can drink the tap water.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Here in the UK we just drink straight from the (cold water only by law due to differring regulations) tap without boiling and that's been the case for decades at the least across the entire nation. There's just no need to boil the water here unless you are cooking.

It's also safe in Iceland, I went there and their water is crystal clear and pure since it's sraight from the glaciers. You could drink out of a random stream there.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

In switzerland, we can drink the tap water without boiling it first.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

In Sweden, yes tap water is safe without boiling. Might want to filter for taste reasons.

I would drink the water in Iceland without boiling it, probably without a second thought. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if it tastes amazing.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (3 children)

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

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

In the Philippines, we don't drink from the tap. At all. It's quite dangerous and there have been a number of internet personalities that got stomach aches from drinking tap water ^cough^ ^haachama^ ^cough^

Instead, there are a lot of establishments here that sell drinkable water at a fraction of a dollar per 5 gallons.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Philadelphia, PA, USA. We don't boil it, but I have a filter on the tap. The drinking water here is safe, but it smells funny, and my family filtered the water even back when we lived somewhere with better tasting water.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Acc. to this site it's fine to drink cold water without boiling in Iceland. However don't drink the tap warm water - it's sulphurous.

But answering your question, in Brazil it varies from city to city. I drink tap water in my city just fine, without boiling or filtering; but I had to do both in another city ~400km from here.

[–] jacktherippah 6 points 1 year ago

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

[–] Asudox 6 points 1 year ago

I do. When I was a child, I was even confused about why people don't drink tap water but buy them instead from shops or why they boil or someway disinfect them.

[–] UncleStewart 6 points 1 year ago

Norway = Yes. But the fresh water pipes are in the same trench as the sewer pipes, and being 100 years old, the clean water depends on the pressure. This is in Oslo btw..

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] fosiacat 6 points 1 year ago

nyc us here, only boil water if there is a warning due to a pipe break or something.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Canada here - tap water is just fine, I filter it at home since I prefer the taste but I've never been adverse to drinking it straight

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] GONADS125 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I live in the US in a location where the tap water is safe to drink (not always the case, e.g., Flint Michigan) but I still filter it for the taste (chlorine in the water).

Most municipal water is safe to drink in the US. Ground water depends entirely on where you live and many situational factors (City pollution, ground water level, etc.).

We will get boil notices from time to time when a contaminant is detected in the water supply. But that's been rare in my experience, after living in several regions in the US.

No one should ever use tap water for netty potting without boiling it though! You can contract a brain-eating amoeba if you don't boil, which has over 97% death rate.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You can drink the tap water in most places in Iceland without boiling it (especially in Reykjavik), but if you're further into the countryside then I would check first!

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Switzerland here,

Yes we absolutely drink tap water here, not only it is well regulated but it may also beat many bottled water in terms of taste..

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

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

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I live in Sweden. Yeah, the tap water is clean and can be drank straight from the tap without boiling, filtering, or treatment in the whole country.

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