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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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.

[–] loehwe@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Yes I'm drinking untreated tap water in Germany, got a SodaStream to add bubbles sometimes. When we were recently visiting the US (NYC) I drank tap water, too, but my wife didn't like it because of a distinct chlorine smell and taste but I didn't mind

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[–] probably_a_robot@lemmy.one 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

[–] Lemminary@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 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.

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[–] amoroso@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] god@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

Some Spanish cities: In Madrid, people drink tap water without boiling. Some leave it to rest so the slight chlorine smell leaves the water. In Barcelona and Valencia, being coastal cities with desalinators, their water is too "heavy" (has too high a density of minerals), which makes it unhealthy to consume on a regular basis, and boiling it does nothing, so people buy a lot of bottled water.

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[–] Addfwyn@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] dewritoninja@pawb.social 5 points 1 year ago

I live in Ecuador. Tap water can be drunk without boiling on the capital and most other cities in the andes. In the Amazon and the pacific is better to boil it first. Guayaquil the second largest city has a reputation of having incredibly dangerous water

[–] skiba@lemmy.ml 5 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.

[–] arefx@lemmy.ml 5 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.

[–] bionicjoey@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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

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[–] chrizbie@lemmy.nz 5 points 1 year ago

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

[–] ElkanNixed@programming.dev 5 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.

[–] Yaardman876@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 year ago

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

[–] jacktherippah@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] GreasyTengu@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

Im from Newfoundland Canada. The city I live in has a water treatment facility and the tap water is perfectly fine to drink without any filtering or boiling.

Many smaller towns in my province only have natural water sources (lakes/ponds/streams) or wells for their water supply. The town I grew up in was like that up till about 2005-2006ish. It was pretty rare for us to have to boil water though, maybe 3 weeks out of the whole year, a neighboring town with a different water supply had to boil their water for most of the year so there was alot of variability.

[–] LongPigFlavor@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 year ago

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

[–] pakiyimo@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

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

[–] Walop@sopuli.xyz 5 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.

[–] lvxferre@lemmy.ml 5 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.

[–] Phantom_Engineer@lemmy.ml 5 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.

[–] teflocarbon@lemmy.world 5 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.

[–] mp3@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 year ago

Canadian here, drinking water right of the tap.

[–] snaptastic@beehaw.org 4 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.

[–] theroz@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] salimundo@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

US it depends on where you live. I grew up and live now in upstate NY and the tap water is great. In between I lived in Arizona and the water was terrible. I have at different times a water cooler or an undersink reverse osmosis. The water wouldn't make you sick though so you can drink it if needed, it was just very hard and tasted bad.

[–] setsneedtofeed@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Reverse osmosis was the right call.

The thing about possible problems with municipal water in the US is that boiling would make the water worse. Boiling kills bacteria, but for things like PFAS contamination all boiling would do is steam off water and increase the concentration of contamination in what’s left.

I’m somewhat paranoid about PFAS contamination since it is tasteless and more of a long term problem rather than something that makes people acutely sick. There are entire counties where I refuse to drink or eat anything prepared within them because of their histories with industrial contamination entering the water supply, which is usually revealed to the public long after the fact.

[–] tookmyname@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 year ago

I’ve never boiled tap. It’s safe where I live. I do have a reverse osmosis filter though. But only for taste, and to remove hardness to protect my glassware.

[–] mst@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Scotland here. We don't boil water before use.

I have family down in North West England that do have to do this, though. They live in an area where there is a thin layer of soil and a lot of clay. The water isn't particularly hard but it also doesn't taste very nice if you don't boil it first.

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[–] Liempong_pagong@beehaw.org 4 points 1 year ago

Depends on how acclimated your stomach is. Locals may be able to drink without problem but foreigners may have stomach problems.

[–] citizensv@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Here in El Salvador, you can drink tap water safely depending the region you are.

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