Asklemmy

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.

Canadian in a major city - yes, safe to drink right from the tap.

However, many remote communities here do not have access to safe drinking water.

In Argentina, generally you can drink straight from the tap.

In Malaysia, the water is advertised as safe to drink. Large majority however, either boils it or uses their own water filters.

Luxembourg here, i'll drink straight from the tap.

In Canada most people drink water after filtering through a Brita, but it's safe to drink without.

Quebec, Canada. I grew up in a rural area where we had our own artesian well on the plot of land, so not attached to any city infrastructure, and no purification process at all, except what is done naturally from the soil. And guess what? It's the purest water I've ever seen, it taste amazingly fresh and the tap is directly plugged on it.

Moved to a big city and now have to use the city infrastructure, which of course have a huge purification plant and they do tests continuously to make sure it pass a high quality threshold. But even if it's probably cleaner than 90% of the rest if the world, it still have a slight unpleasant taste. I could probably buy a filter, but never bothered.

Buying bottled water is seen as wasteful and also a scam since it's often just tap water they bottled. When my family visited a country where bttled water is common, they were disgusted at how much plastic pollution it creates.

I would hate to have to boil water before every usage, I assume you always keep a few gallons in the fridge to keep some cold? It takes space and energy to prepare, must be annoying. But what I wonder the most is, how to do wash yourselves and your clothes? If the water smells foul, doesn't taking a shower just stink you even more than it cleans?

I visited australia and we had to drink from the tap.

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.

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

We drink straight from the tap here in Scotland. It's great water.

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

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.

Austria, yes, water is fine like that I would even drink it in the shower without issue. What is an issue is this habit once made for a bad time in Egypt where I didn‘t drink tap water (I was warned), but I mindlessly used it for brushing teeth and that probably ruined my last few days there.

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.

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

Yes. Here in Portugal, water is drinkable without boiling. Of course, water quality varies from region to region, but as it happens, where I live it's quite good :)

Canada here - I drink water straight from the tap.

Although Canadian tap water is some of the highest quality tap water in the world.

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.

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.

India here. I can drink tap water without boiling, it just has a slight chlorinated taste. That's why we prefer to filter it, rather than boil.

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

This is crazy - for sure, in many countries it can be taken straight from the tap depending on the reliability of infrastructure... but to waste energy boiling it??? No thanks.

In England, I moved a few times - some places have great tasting water - others not so great - meaning it's always safe (and ok for brewing or cooking) but not so good for drinking from the tap.

In Scotland (a couple of places I stayed and worked) it's a toss up whether you should drink the tapwater, or go to your local and take another dram from the top row.. those Single Malt Whiskeys made with water from Scotland are amazing... but both are safe in moderation.

In Bangkok, if I don't clean my shower out monthly, it ends up with brown gunge building up, so I certainly don't drink the stuff... and it's hard to know how clean it is (though we're told it's certainly drinkable at source, it has a long way to come to my house - and the pressure of the system is low... another red flag). Visiting tropical islands, you see some resorts are connected via long plastic pipes which are often on the surface (in the sun) and so definitely not the best candidate for anything more than a shower.

In Bangkok too, unless you can test it yourself you shouldn't drink it - but I fail to see why you'd decide to boil dirty water and drink it, seeing as most countries with inadequate tap water have drinking water.

I wouldn't use 'boiled tap water' to make my pasta either.

I have six large bottles which gets topped up each week, to make sure I have plenty of water to cook and drink with... If I didn't, then I'd invest in a good water filtration system.

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.