Asklemmy

Damn that sounds so time consuming. In most of the US where I'm from, water is treated really well and can just be drank straight from tap safely. I put my water in a brita to filter it so it's a bit more pure, and it also tastes better. Some nicer fridges with have a water filter in the front door, so you just press your glass against it and it fills it with perfect water. Also they usually have a button to dispense ice cubes. I never realized how nice I have it compared to the rest of the world lol.

You can safely drink unboiled tapwater in most places in Poland.

German here. Yes, constantly. The only reason to not do it would be taste (personal preference) or sometimes due to pollutants entering the system, which is explicitly communicated by the city.

no and no. The tap where I live taste nasy, i think its safe to drink but its not very good so I dont use it.

When I was in Cainta, Rizal, Philippines, my uncle always boils tap water before drinking. This is indeed a safety measure. He doesn't buy gallon bottles of drinking water.

US here. Although we have a water municipality, I still drink bottled water or water through a filter. I had my water tested by third party lab and found out they over chlorinate which leaves a lot of disinfectant byproducts in the water. I’m looking to get a whole home water filter installed to remedy that.

Modern treatment plants don't use chlorine anymore, they use cloramines that have little scent or taste. This is most likely the case in HK as well.

Boiling water that doesn't need to be boiled is a waste of energy and GHG.

Where I live in the US, I don't have a need to boil water unless I'm cooking or making tea, and am safe drinking the tap water. I consider myself lucky.

I am from the Philippines, and in my city, there are districts that have unpotable water and they resort in using purified water for drinking and cooking. In my district though, water is very potable and we drank it until switching to purified water last year because our water provider got their system contaminated.

In India generally people use a water purifier to filter tap water before consumption.

US/Canada here as well as someone that has visited most of western Europe (UK, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland) and stayed in hostels - no boiling necessary in any of these places.

There's actually a pervasive myth I've encountered that hot tap water is dangerous and that one should only drink cold water. As far as I'm aware, this myth is due to an old setup for water systems that many western homes had before modern taps. The tap was separated into separate cold/hot faucets. The cold water came safely from the city, but the hot water came from tanks that were stored in people's attics. The water in these tanks sat stagnant and was therefore prone to rats and other creatures dying in it or bacteria building up. This is why still today, most British homes have separate hot/cold taps - to keep the "safe" water separate from the "dangerous" water. I occasionally encountered such taps in the US and I assume that's why my dad raised me to make sure the water was cold before drinking it. My father's understanding of this was clearly outdated though. I learned all of this from a Tom Scott video.

One thing about tap water in the USA is that, while you can drink it, water taste varies a lot.

For instance, in the Southwest USA, it is very common for bottled water to be sold in gallons. There are even small stores whose main purpose is to filter tap water to remove minerals.

You also have the use of non-potable "grey" water that is treated sewage water that gets used for irrigation. You'll usually see signs to not drink that water.

USA: Yes, I drink tap water.

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, 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.

In Lithuania we do not need to boil tap water to drink it and usually it tastes nice unless your plumbing is fucked

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.

In Canada, tap water is perfectly fine to drink as is. There are some exceptions when it comes to more remote places, especially in some camping grounds, but they'll tell you or write it somewhere if that's the case.

I went to Iceland last year and the water's very clean and safe! There's no problem drinking it from the tap.

In Finland I drink straight out the shower head, it's fun and wonderfully safe.

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

I think you've already had plenty of replies here, but yeah here in western Europe, straight from the tap. I'm also fortunate not to have any chlorine in my water. It's delicious.

One thing about the chlorine, it also just evaporates over time without boiling. Filling a jug of water and leaving it standing around for a while will also get rid of that chlorine smell/taste!

In USA yes, we drink tap water without boiling as long as we're in an area with safe tap water (most of the population) and not using our own untreated/untested well water. Every once in a while we get alerted to local unsafe tap water. We have a filter on the tap water but haven't always.

I drink tap water, but ours comes from our private well. We double filter it: sediment then carbon. Back in Costa Rica I also drank tap water, Costa Rica has one of the safest water.

I'm from Italy and i drink tap water since I was child. Never had any problem. But I was told to check tubature aging and materials first, if it's new and not made in lead metal, it's safe.

Most people boil water before drinking here in Singapore. However I personally drink straight from the tap while my wife boils first. Apparently part of Singapore's water is recycled pee but tastes fine to me.

Hello Mr Hong Kongnese. I'm a Brit. We don't boil water here and I've visisted Iceland - they don't boil it either.

Diu gau lan tsat hai - Merry Christmas. Enjoy your holiday.

I live in Brazil. When I lived on the farm, father set it up so the water would come from a natural underground mine and it was entirely safe to drink. However, in the town, we always bought gallons of packet water instead of using it from the tap. In the city I drank tap water for some years and didn't die, but the taste of the water changed when we began using a filter (thought it was likely that it was because the thing connecting our tap to the system was made out of rubber and a colony of bacteriae began to grow there).

Still, Brazil as a whole is mid risk for intestinal parasites and everyone is recommended to get a filter or packed water by the UN, and also to take anti-vermin medicine once per year.

I live in the US, I use a reverse osmosis filter and then boil the water