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Went looking to see what the comparison to tap water was: > Orb found on average there were 10.4 particles of plastic per litre that were 100 microns (0.10 mm)

• afiori 7y ago
  In at least a couple of European countries it is well known that unless your city has specific problems tap water is better than bottled water. The reason being that (except some cases of corruption...) legal limit are much stricter for tap water. Better in impurities at the very least, the taste is usually quite worse.
  • irrational 7y ago
    Is there a list? I know that in the US all tap water is (or should be) safe to drink. But anytime I travel, even to developed countries, I only use bottled water since I consider the water to be suspect unless I know differently.
    • groby_b 7y ago
      US tap water is far from safe to drink. Ask Flint, Michigan. (Incredible levels of lead in the water). Pittsburgh (in 2017) didn't even have enough people to run the necessary water audits. Milwaukee's city health commissioner resigned in 2018 because they didn't warn about unsafe lead levels in the water. In 2018, around half of the samples from Newark's water system showed lead levels above the EPA's threshold. Large parts of Texas' water contain elevated amounts of radium[1]. Brady, TX, has water that's green, brown, orange[2] - it changes - and has 9 times the EPA limit of radium California has a statewide sanitation problem.[3] And that's just a starter set. [1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/drinking-water-radium-contamination-cancer/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/drinking-water-radium-contamina... [2] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/08/14/63-million-americans-exposed-unsafe-drinking-water/564278001/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/08/14/63-million-am... [3] https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/water-and-drought/article211474679.html https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/water-and-drought/art...
      • irrational 7y ago
        I guess it's just the places in the US I've lived in that have safe tap water.
        • zaroth 7y ago
          Yes, just the vast majority of the US (geographically and population wise) has incredibly good tap water, with a long tail of famously bad exceptions to the rule.
          • groby_b 7y ago
            63 million people is a really, really long tail.
            • jquery 7y ago
              How does this compare to the EU? It's one thing for tap water to not be perfect, it's quite another for it to be as bad as Flint, MI. What's the true distribution here? Making people unreasonably afraid of tap water just seems irresponsible.
              • Moru 7y ago
                Making people affraid of tap water is the business model of bottled water. US tap water is well known to be bad compared to the rest of the developed world (thanks to marketing).
            • zaroth 7y ago
              Where did you get 63 million? The third link from GP has a headline which reads “360,000 Californians have unsafe drinking water. Are you one of them?” That’s approximately 1% of CA’s population. That’s not even a long tail.
              • groby_b 7y ago
                The second link.
    • GordonS 7y ago
      There are several lists online, but essentially tap water is safe (preferable, even) across the whole of Europe and Scandinavia.
  • sarnowski 7y ago
    Living in Germany/Berlin and can confirm. Our tap water is excellent and is way cleaner than all bottled water you can buy. Keep in mind, bottled water is also kept around way longer and has the time to „breed“. In tests, the tap water is consistently less contaminated. I recommend everyone to just stick to it. As an anecdote: you can let your tap water be tested for free if you have a newborn to ensure and confirm that you can use it for baby food without doubt.
    • throwaway66920 7y ago
      Is Berlin (as opposed to other areas of Germany) culturally ok with drinking tap water?
      • cerebellum42 7y ago
        I'd say all of Germany is culturally very much ok with drinking tap water, Berlin not much more or less than other regions. People who drink bottled water here don't usually do it because they think it's "better" than tap water, it's either because of convenience when you're not home or because they like carbonated water (which is very popular in Germany).
        • freeflight 7y ago
          Or because the tap water just doesn't really taste that good. The one coming out of my line just tastes too "metalic", I often tried getting over it but I just can't.
          • Reason077 7y ago
            Have you tried a water filter?
        • wibble10 7y ago
          A lot of the buildings in Berlin have very old pipes and while the water to the building is alright, we (in Berlin) have to rely mainly on glass bottles of water (bismark) as if you don’t run the taps enough there’s a nice colour that comes out...
  • NeedMoreTea 7y ago
    And not to forget a number of bottled waters are simply tap water. One of the earliest I remember was taking Northern UK tap water, in a region that doesn't flouridate, letting it sit in tanks long enough to dechlorinate, then bottling it. Too long ago to remember the brand. Dasani and Aquafina are both from the tap. Probably lots of others, but we never buy bottled water of any source.
  • kmjg88nvf8 7y ago
    While that is the common story, I am not entirely convinced. It is presumably true that there are more controls for tap water. But those controls still only test a limited number of substances. One story that goes around a lot is for example the claim that tap water contains a lot of hormones from all the contraceptive pills women take and then flush out of their body into the water system. That seems to not be controlled for. Not sure how serious the issue really is. More controls also doesn't change the quality of water. It only detects bad water of some variants. If you had an excellent "mineral water" and an OK tap water, more controls wouldn't make the tap water any better. Not saying you shouldn't drink the tap water. I drink it most of the time.
    • ricardobeat 7y ago
      If that's the case, the same would be true for most bottled water. The majority of mainstream brands are made from water from the same distribution system, just filtered some more and with added minerals.
  • thisisnico 7y ago
    Living in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, I can confirm that our water is extremely clean and good to drink. Additionally our city was rated one of the best tasting tap waters for all of Ontario, cities literally compete for quality water. Contrast that to Flint michigan across the river from me.
    • lottin 7y ago
      Best tasting or least tasting? (Since water is tasteless...)
      • csa 7y ago
        > Since water is tasteless... I think for some people this might seem to be true. That said, for folks who are able to taste such things, clean water from different sources definitely can have tastes that differ based on the minerality of the water. I used to think this was BS, but I changed my mind after doing a deep dive into wine, in which flavors like minerality of the soil, local flowers, and the like are definitely represented in finer wines. For an over-the-top water example, check out this video: https://youtu.be/rg3Mr6e1KMo https://youtu.be/rg3Mr6e1KMo
        • AnonymousPlanet 7y ago
          In Germany, every supermarket has dozens of different bottled water brands. The vast majority are not fancy and are on the lower end regarding price. You can taste your way through the different mineralisations, from kind of dry tasting over sweet to salty. It's not a surprise the guy introducing Americans to the varieties of water tastes in your link is German.
      • SubuSS 7y ago
        You should try tasting distilled water and see for yourself if water is tasteless :). The tastelessness makes it pretty hard to drink. Pure water is tasteless - the one we drink has a bunch of stuff.
    • aledalgrande 7y ago
  • djsumdog 7y ago
    Bottled water is also usually just tap water .. at a 1000% markup. You're paying for tap water plus some plastic.
• groby_b 7y ago
  Well, for microplastics. If you live e.g. in the Bay Area, your tap water instead has a good chance of having a good helping of hexavalent chromium[1], which... not too healthy. (Neither are arsenic, bromium, etc.) Pick your poison. Literally. [1] https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Tap-water-Bay-Area-database-contaminants-study-11510434.php https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Tap-water-Bay-Area-datab...
  • 4ntonius8lock 7y ago
    Is this something that would be removed with common cheap consumer filters? (such as Britta) I drink a lot of tap water, but always put it through a filter of some sort.
    • groby_b 7y ago
      I honestly don't know. IIRC, you need an ion exchange filter (but they're bad for other reasons) or a reverse osmosis one certified for Cr(VI). https://www.ewg.org/tapwater/ https://www.ewg.org/tapwater/ has a pretty decent guide.
    • _0ffh 7y ago
      If you don't mind a bit of work (weekly rinsing) and discarding part of the water, I'd recommend a reverse osmosis filter. They're reasonably cheap and beat the crap out of all the alternatives for non-professional users. You'll essentially have to add back some salts after the filtration process to turn it into something that won't demineralise you.
    • mdorazio 7y ago
      Took some poking around to piece together a real answer, but the ion exchange component in a standard Brita filter (or similar pour-through) isn't the right kind to trap chromium (mostly just zinc, copper, and cadmium). You either need a higher-grade ion exchange filter (you can search for "Chromium 6 Water Filter" on Amazon) or a reverse osmosis system.
      • 4ntonius8lock 7y ago
• djsumdog 7y ago
  Tap water in the developed world is really really good. You can measure a country by the ability of that nation to provide clean water to people. Municipal water supplies in cities like Atlanta and Cincinnati are often tested 200~300 times per month at several pumping and maintenance locations. Bottled water is a scam, and it also is a resources that's often extracted from poor countries and communities. The documentary Tapped and Blue Gold both go into all the screwed up thing the bottle water industry does. For countries without clean water, bottled water is not the solution. Better municipal water, more wells and cheaper, low energy water purification around those wells is a much more sustainable solution.
  • fireattack 7y ago
    >Bottled water is a scam, and it also is a resources that's often extracted from poor countries and communities Are you sure about this? My impression is that the price/weight ratio of bottled water is way to low to make any sense to not bottle them in close proximity, so "extracted from poor countries" doesn't sound plausible.
    • onion2k 7y ago
      The bottled water is produced close to where it's sold. The issue is in countries where the water bottling plant takes up lots of the available local water so the poorer citizens can't access it, and they can't afford the bottled water either. This means they don't have access to any clean water. One of Nestle's recent CEOs actually went on record to say say he didn't believe access to clean water should be a human right.
      • Reason077 7y ago
        > "The bottled water is produced close to where it's sold." Well, not always. Premium brands are often shipped long distances. Evian, Fiji water, etc...
        • reaperducer 7y ago
• mc32 7y ago
  Do in-line water filters you get at home centers filter those sized particles out, or are they too small?
• Reason077 7y ago
  > "Worse... it's worse than tap water." Considering the bottles are made of plastic, it would be surprising if they contained less plastic particles than tap water. What would be interesting is if glass bottled water contained a similar number of plastic particles, because that would suggest a different source of contamination.
  • thatcat 7y ago
    No, bottled is ro filtered and should be clean of particles over .001 mm.
    • Reason077 7y ago
      Yes, and then it gets put in a plastic bottle. Not all bottled waters are RO filtered, either. Many are sourced from natural springs and retain various minerals.
  • emptysands 7y ago
    One of the theories is that putting the caps and other mechanic actions cause friction and create the particles. Many water pipes in houses are plastic. Would be interesting to see studies on tap water.