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.
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.
You might already know this, but I just wanted to mention (for anyone curious) that one neat thing about what NYC did is that it's actually one of the more famous textbook examples of ecosystem services.
Basically, at some point they actually calculated how much it'd cost to build a water filtration plant vs. how much it'd cost to maintain the Catskills watershed, and found that the latter was significantly cheaper, proving the notion that well-functioning natural systems can do things that are worth huge amounts of money, seemingly for "free", so they're well worth the effort to understand and safeguard such resources.
Here's an article about it: https://blogs.edf.org/markets/2017/11/07/how-and-why-farmers-in-the-catskills-protect-new-york-citys-drinking-water/
And here's an article about how policy approaches have changed over time. https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2015/11/30/the-catskill-watershed-a-story-of-sacrifice-and-cooperation/
This is such a great story, thanks for posting it!
You're welcome!
Interesting, I live in Europe and I remember hearing ~10-15 years ago that water in NY city was not good to drink (rust, bad taste, etc...).
Has it evolved in the last decade or is it just another example of "do not trust hearsay"?
Michigan prides itself on killing poor people.
Yes, my water provider is almost overzealous about notifying us when there's any kind of disruption to the system, even if it doesn't directly impact my house. I'll get a phone call, text, and email from them all within three minutes. Only once has it been a boil water order.
An example of unpalatable water is in Los Angeles. While it is safe to drink it testes bad. Many people have office style water dispensers in their homes that use 3 or 5 gallon bottles. The bottles can be filled in a vending machine or at the water store. Water stores typically have large filtration systems and charge about 25 cents per gallon.
Here are some reviews of watr stores with pics: https://www.yelp.com/search?cflt=waterstores&find_loc=Los+Angeles%2C+CA