Asklemmy

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

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..

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.

I live in Bavaria, Germany, and I've been drinking tap water here for over 30 years without boiling.

But I live in a rural area. I once had a job in the industrial area of a semi-sized city and the tap water there was sketchy.

Depends, I guess.

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

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.

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.

I believe in Canada we have high standards for our potable water, unlike the UK for example our water heaters need to be up to par (UK typically has seperate taps AFAIK).

So no need to boil, also if you're trying to get rid of chlorine you can just use Brita filters, carbon filters that restaurants use do the same AFAIK. Also even cities like mine which (at least at some point before now) had way more houses than apartments still chlorinated the entire city's supply.

Filters are insanely good these days. I was thinking about getting a life straw, but there's a slightly more expensive alternative that can do like 500x more filtering before it needs to be replaced, and comes with a pouch you can fill and then pour into a regular water bottle. Life straws are meant to be drank from directly, and the alternatives that company offers are just water bottles with life straws built in - so you put unfiltered water in the bottle itself... Probably gets gross or requires constant cleaning

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

In England we drink straight from the tap. I live in London which has incredibly hard water so it's not the nicest tasting and it will leave white residue on the glass but it's not bad for you.

I’m located in the US and like others have said it’s safe to drink the tap water, but me personally, I run my water through a filter first.

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.

Argentina, drinking filtered tap water rn (not boiled). It's said to be safe but quality may vary throughout the country. Although it's not recommend for small childrens

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.

Not at all...where I live tap water isn't clean at all. It comes in a white colour with pression. And mining industry contaminated a lot

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.

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.

Australia here - we drink water straight from the tap, but I picked up the habit of drinking boiled water from my frequent trips to Shanghai.

Straight and fresh from the pipes! Writing from Transilvania, Romania.

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

We filter our tap water here in Korea. Most people do, but as I understand, it's safe to drink it just straight from the tap. It's just better through a machine that gets rid of any lingering chlorine and heats it or chills it for you.

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.

The thing about living in an undeveloped countries is that you don't have to worry about that sort of thing.. I'm pretty fucking sure a billion things will get me before contaminates water does.

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.

Australian here, no need to boil tap water for us. Some people get filter taps installed but regular tap is fine for most of us plebs

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.

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

Croatia here,

tap water is completely drinkable and safe without any boiling. Exception are some more remote islands, so if you are going on some island, chekc if the tap water is drinkable.

Fun fact: Croatia actually uses drinkable water for toilets as well, altough i would not drink from a toilet :)

Yes, living in the US, it's safe to assume that any tap water is safe to drink without boiling. Sometimes it doesn't taste great because of mineral content, but it's safe with very few exceptions.

That's also been the case in any developed country that I have visited, including Iceland, Canada, pretty much all of Europe, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, etc. There may be exceptions in all of those places, but in any large city in a developed country you can drink the tap water.

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!

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

I lived in Taiwan and was taught to boil. I'm starting to think you probably don't need to but we just grew up not knowing any better. In Australia you don't. I drink out of any tap that's not a rain water tap. Lots of Asians here still buy bottled water or boil water out regardless. So it seems to be out of uninformed fear or habit.

My belief is unless a local government/health authority tells you you can't drink straight from the tap. I'm inclined to believe it's safe.

I never drink water out of the tap because I prefer to filter it first. It’s safe to drink but I want it clean and much colder so into a filter pitcher and put that in the fridge