Asklemmy

I live in Melbourne Australia and we drink water straight out of the tap. Even restaurants give you tap water

When i lived in hongkong i never boiled the water, i just drank it from the tap

Here in Estonia tap water is great everywhere. Like my parents have a well at their farm connected to their plumbing and it's the best water I have ever had. The capital has water that tastes kinda like drinking pool water but that is perfectly safe too and only an issue in the capital city.

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.

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

US, New York, I don't boil my water (I have to specify state as people in flint michigan probably disagree)

American from Indiana here. Yep, all the time.

The tap water is perfectly drinkable in my city but I was raised to drink boiled water coming from a Chinese family. Water straight from the tap tastes disgusting to me.

Related Billy Conelly joke. May be NSFW, https://youtube.com/watch?v=LSao_EBAR6Y&feature=share9

Australian here, yes. Our tap water is pretty good

I'm from Italy, here laws for tap water are very restrictive (more than laws for bottle water). Here in Rome tap water is really good.

Believe it or not New York City has some of the best water in the state if not the country. I live outside of the city, and while I can drink from the tap, we prefer to use a filtered water pitcher, but we don’t boil first.

Yep, I've lived in Japan, Canada and Australia and had no issues with tap water in any of them. (Although in Canada I do filter it, as there is potential issues with lead pipes and acidic water.) When I've been travelling I've drank tap water across a lot of Europe with no issues.

Here is Jamaica it is safe to drink the tap water without boiling.

In this US, yes, we generally trust our tap water (although there have been notable incidents of water infrastructure failures, such as major lead contamination in Flint, MI), to the extent that if you get a drink in a restaurant here, 99% of the time it's going to be mixed or made using tap water, with ice made from tap water.

Some folks will use a filter (Brita brand filter pitchers used to be popular at one time, with TV ads and everything) but that's more for filtering out chemicals/toxins/minerals than anything else.

In rural places, every now and then the local government or water company (yes, a lot of places here have privatized water infrastructure which is not super great) will put out a 'Boil Water Notice' but this is generally considered outside of the norm, and you usually expect to see that kind of stuff resolve within a couple of days unless it's a result of a major disaster (we were under a Boil Water notice for 2 weeks after hurricane Katrina in my area, the longest stretch I ever remember). Boil Water notices are usually a result of either a breach of the infrascture (a pipe collapsing and the water supply getting dirty), or a water supply failing its regular quality/safety tests. Our water (can't speak for everywhere in the US, and don't really know the specifics of how they do it) is chemically treated and filtered before it goes into the tap, and the supply mechanisms are usually regularly tested to make sure they're within safe standards.

All of that being said, I know people who refuse to drink tap water, mostly because it tends to have a distinct taste from treatment and from having minerals in it, but also because they've heard horror stories like in Flint. Two things: those folks normally drink bottled water, which is usually just bottled-up tap water from some other place; and I usually see those folks gladly drinking fountain drinks/tea/etc at a restaurant, which is made with un-boiled tap water and served on tap-ice.

TL;DR - the tap water in the US is generally considered safe to drink, in most places, with notable exceptions, and for now (our mostly-privatized infrastructure is getting worse and worse, and very public failures have started to appear in not only water infrastructure, but everywhere)

In Vienna, Austria, tap water isn't just 'run of the mill' water you'd get in other places, it's pristine mountain spring water, transported all the way to the city through old, yet sturdy, aqueducts.

What's amazing about this is that it's not just safe to drink, but often it surpasses the quality of bottled water you'd find in many other countries. So, the next time you're in Vienna, don't hesitate to fill your cup or bottle straight from the tap.

It's not only environmentally friendly, but you'll be enjoying some of the best water around. Truly a testament to how traditional infrastructure can serve modern needs while preserving the environment.

I live in Philadelphia and I always boil and filter my tap water. My mother did it when we grew up in New York, then my brother and I continued the practice.

Austria here. Yes, drink from tap, especially Wien. You won't find mineral bottled water for sale easily.