Do you drink a lot of tap water

[said]

Do you drink water directly from the tap or do you drink filtered/bottled water?

It is claimed that the UK has the safest drinking water in the world. But even then, that water is tested at source after all the treatments it is put through - not after it has travelled through old pipeways and systems to reach you.

United Utilities serving the North West filter the water through:

Chemical coagulation - by adding a harmless chemical to the water to make sediment form clumps so that they can be filtered out easier
Flocculation - addition of polymers to enhance removal of the clumps of sediment.
Sedimentation - removes larger particles of sediment
Filtration - passing water through e.g sand to remove bacteria and settled particles
Disinfection - Addition of Chlorine to kill bacteria and microbes.

"Do I really need to filter my tap water?

More than half of the chemicals found in municipal water are not regulated. Using the right water filter can help further reduce pollutants like lead from old water pipes, pesticide runoff in rural areas and byproducts of chemicals like chlorine that are used to treat drinking water." Copied and pasted

Bottled water may contain micro plastics which are not good for your health. Healthline.com

So how do you like your drinking water?

[The PNP]

Bottled water may contain micro plastics which are not good for your health.

I'm aware of that one, but then any drink sold in plastic bottles, like milk, cola, alcoholic beverages etc, may contain micro-plastics - eek!

[local]

Do you drink water directly from the tap or do you drink filtered/bottled water?

It is claimed that the UK has the safest drinking water in the world. But even then, that water is tested at source after all the treatments it is put through - not after it has travelled through old pipeways and systems to reach you.

United Utilities serving the North West filter the water through:

Chemical coagulation - by adding a harmless chemical to the water to make sediment form clumps so that they can be filtered out easier
Flocculation - addition of polymers to enhance removal of the clumps of sediment.
Sedimentation - removes larger particles of sediment
Filtration - passing water through e.g sand to remove bacteria and settled particles
Disinfection - Addition of Chlorine to kill bacteria and microbes.

"Do I really need to filter my tap water?

More than half of the chemicals found in municipal water are not regulated. Using the right water filter can help further reduce pollutants like lead from old water pipes, pesticide runoff in rural areas and byproducts of chemicals like chlorine that are used to treat drinking water." Copied and pasted

Bottled water may contain micro plastics which are not good for your health. Healthline.com

So how do you like your drinking water?

Do you store yours in Aluminium Prof?

[Stuartli]

Lived in the town since birth for decades, always drank tap water in quantity and I'm still here to tell the tale.

United Utilities, by the way, replaced all the lead pipes in the town about five or six years ago; it's also not "municipal water".

[donkey22]

Tap water is fine for me, I prefer it heated up and left with some malt in it for a few hours before returning it to the boil and adding some hops.
Allow it to cool off and add some yeast before bottling and finally drinking. Delicious!

[donkey22]

Lived in the town since birth for decades, always drank tap water in quantity and I'm still here to tell the tale.

United Utilities, by the way, replaced all the lead pipes in the town about five or six years ago; it's also not "municipal water".

I remember (as a young child), my Nan offering me a glass of corporation pop. Such disappointment when a glass of water arrived at the table.

[Hector]

Tap water is fine for me, I prefer it heated up and left with some malt in it for a few hours before returning it to the boil and adding some hops.
Allow it to cool off and add some yeast before bottling and finally drinking. Delicious!

That 's interesting. A homemade nutraceutical soft- drink. Have you investigated what effect the boiling of the malt has as regards the sugars in malt? And I wonder how much extra alcohol your system is producing during transit and absorption time.

[Hector]

I drank Southport Corporation Pop for the first 16 years of my life. My memory of it is that it was high in limestone.

A few years ago, a Canadian doctor opined, after treating me during a vist to Canada, that this may have been a contributory factor in the kidney stones she had had to deal with.

[Lamparilla]

Lived in the town since birth for decades, always drank tap water in quantity and I'm still here to tell the tale.

United Utilities, by the way, replaced all the lead pipes in the town about five or six years ago; it's also not "municipal water".

It is if you copy and paste from an outdated report

[jamyramy]

have had to stop drinking tap water ,fin dit upsets my stomach.bought a filter for home ,helps a litttle, but bottled water seem s to be ok .not ideal no choice really.its been worse the last few years or so used to be able to drink tap water.some times you can taste and smell the chemicals in it ,find this mostly nightimes,brushing teeth .the tap waters not what it was it seems.

[seivad]

More than half of the chemicals found in municipal water are not regulated. Using the right water filter can help further reduce pollutants like lead from old water pipes, pesticide runoff in rural areas and byproducts of chemicals like chlorine that are used to treat drinking water." Copied and pasted

It also helps if you C&P from a British source. Surely you noticed it was from a New York Times blog? It also states that the Environmental Protection Agency is responsible for the regulation of tap water. Is their British equivalent guilty of not regulating chemicals in tap water?

Considering the number of scandals about the quality of tap water in many US cities, it doesn't surprise me that filtration is recommended. However quoting American regulations and water quality is misleading Q readers.

[Toodles McGinty]

We have a Berkey water filter. A little cumbersome, but it does the trick.

Mainly a matter of taste. It isn't as though we need to filter pond water, though it would if needed. It takes the chemical taste and smell away, which TBF isn't massively noticeable until you compare a glass of filtered and unfiltered.

There have been a few cases of contaminants in tap water, but they are extremely rare. And the water authority in question is usually on the case within hours (wasn't there one in Chorley a few years back?) so I wouldn't worry about British tap water.

Seems the C&P in the OP is from the USA. That's a whole different world when it comes to tap water. The horrors of Flint as shown in the Michael Moore documentary is the stuff of nightmares.

[Stuartli]

I drank Southport Corporation Pop for the first 16 years of my life. My memory of it is that it was high in limestone.

That's because it was. Hence the furred up kettles etc, now rarely a problem. Much of the water came from wells close to the town.

[Snig's foot]

Despite Said and jamyramy believing that ' t'were better in th' olden days ' I remember that there were seasonal outbreaks of Shigella dysentery in Formby in the 50s and early 60s (yeah, we needed that 'natural immunity'). This was probably because in hot summers Formby used to run out of water, this can allow external water (think septic tanks, leaking sewers, murky ground water) to be drawn into the water mains.
The problem was solved once the Formby wells were largely superceded by water from Southport, and then a pipeline from Hightown brought Liverpool water to Formby.
These days the water in Formby and Southport is essentially the same as that in Liverpool. The supply is distributed from the Prescot reservoirs which receive their water from the Dee and Vyrynwy, and in the last few years, there is the capability to receive water from the Rivington reservoirs too. However the local deep wells still supply some of our water.
As Hector remarked our water used to be very hard (limestone), with tons of limescale, these days it is slightly hard (largely due to artificial hardening by UU to reduce lead dissolving in the water from householders' own pipes).
Water quality in the UK is largely 'self-policing' by the water companies (they take by far the majority of samples at consumer's taps), the Drinking Water Inspectorate also take some samples, and local authorities have largely had their powers removed in recent years....but must be satisfied that the supply is 'wholesome'.
Outside the public supply are 'private water supplies', there's only a handful in this area, but in Wales and the Lakes these can be fairly big localised networks. I did go out with a sampler in this area to check on some of the local private supplies...essentially a shallow well supplying one isolated house. The waters were thick, green or brown with teeming visible plant and animal life! I was informed that this is what they bathed in (bad enough), but horrified when one household said they drank it (after going through a big jug filter)...I've been informed since that they now have bottled water for drinking and are looking at really comprehensive treatment to purify the water.
Whatever you use; you will be ingesting plastic: UU use plastic pipes and polyvalent electrolytes, bottled water contains plastic, and if you use water filters then these have carbon particles and electrolytes attached to polystyrene beads.
i used to love my 'eco-warrior' friends who complained about the black bits in their water not realising that these came out of their jug filter!
Unless you drink untreated well water of course.

[seivad]

We have a Berkey water filter. A little cumbersome, but it does the trick.

Mainly a matter of taste. It isn't as though we need to filter pond water, though it would if needed. It takes the chemical taste and smell away, which TBF isn't massively noticeable until you compare a glass of filtered and unfiltered.

There have been a few cases of contaminants in tap water, but they are extremely rare. And the water authority in question is usually on the case within hours (wasn't there one in Chorley a few years back?) so I wouldn't worry about British tap water.

Seems the C&P in the OP is from the USA. That's a whole different world when it comes to tap water. The horrors of Flint as shown in the Michael Moore documentary is the stuff of nightmares.

I have an ice maker & water dispenser in the fridge, along with a filter. I always drink ice cream headache cold water from the dispenser. The 'change filter' light has been on for months now, but the water tastes just the same! I guess I should change it though.

The Flint water scandal was disgraceful, but that's the US for you. There are even people living with radioactive waste on their property. I don't know if it's been dealt with since I first saw this HBO documentary:

https://thebulletin.org/2018/06/atom...oactive-waste/