4 ms·

I say this as a guy who drinks from his garden hose: plenty of public water fountains are disgusting and I don't want to touch them.

• reaperducer 7y ago
  A lot of people think public water fountains are gross because they don't understand them or how they work. I once read a pretty good magazine article explaining that public water fountains are generally cleaner than most office water coolers. I don't remember all of the details, but in essence, it's because they are regularly inspected by professionals, and the water moving though the pipes to get to the fountain and then through the spigot reduces the chances of contamination. Unlike your office water cooler where the water sits around forever. We have to have a guy come out to de-funk our office water cooler every three months. Amazingly, people have drunk from public water fountains for thousands of years and been just fine. Spend some time in Rome and watch hundreds of thousands of people drink from tens of thousands of public water fountains all day long, and amazingly the city hasn't been wiped out by the cooties.