Tap Water--Is it safe to Drink?

All I drink is tap water. We can't afford to buy bottled waters all the tim ewhen we have free water right in our sink. We did buy a filter system, but have never replaced the cartridge in it so I doubt its filtering very well any more.

It is disturbing that many of the old plastic bottled waters have been deemed unsafe. Now we are being told that new plastics are being used, and they are safe. Who knows? Perhaps it is for the best to buy bottled water only in glass containers, such as Voss. I do enjoy Voss bottled water. Fortunately, I live in a municipality that has water that is not only safe to drink, but also delicious. I have lived all over, and this is by far the best tasting water I've ever had.

It really depends on the source of tap water, if you are confident enough that it came from a good source, yes filtering them maybe safer that bottled water. Safety of bottled water against microorganism are only true once when you haven't openned it. Once openned, there is a risk of contamination. When it comes to the plastic containers, you are right, using stainless and glass bottles are still the best way to store water. Plastics may be degraded and release some toxins that may contaminate the water and may have adverse effects on our body.

It is not good when you put hot water into plastic bottles. normally it is safe then you don't need to worry too much about it.

I think it depends on the quality of water in your area/place. In here, tap water is still safe to drink since a lot are still drinking it and the authority had done tests on it and said it was still safe to drink. Although still better to filter it before drinking. I prefer tap water than bottled water.

tap water is safe to drink in some countries only. In my country, tap water is not safe to drink. We still have to filter it and boil it. After that, it is safe to drink. On the other hand, there are countries in the European side that have safe tap water. I also agree with you when you said that bottled water is unsafe. Bottled water becomes unsafe when it is heated. It is said that when the bottle is heated, the plastic would melt with the water. That is why it is unsafe.

No I wouldn't say that most tap water is safe to drink because almost everyone lives some where close to a plant that gives off some kind of toxicity into the water, ground, or air that could get into our water. There was a paper processing plant in our town and a lot of the chemical they used to bleach the paper white got into the drinking water of local houses. Also I know that most city water is treated with chemicals whether it be Sodium, Fluoride, Chlorine, or god knows what else. Treated water is also made from sewage water and they basically just treat it with chemicals and call it safe to drink. The best way to have safe drinking water though is to get a water distiller and distill all of your drinking water at home. That's the best way to guarantee that you water is as toxin free as possible and when you get one and see all that a distiller takes out of our water you will be shocked to see all of the gunk that we are normally drinking.

Yanza, so far i daily boiled and drink tap water from my area here without any problem. I usually filtered my drinking water and boiled them before consumed them. So far, non of us are having any health problem due to the drinking water, so we still continue to consume it. So, i think my area tap water is still safe for consumption. Only when we are out in the town, then only i will buy a few bottles of mineral water for our consumption.

In singapore, it's safe to drink from taps because our water has been treated before reaching household or general usage, unless stated otherwise. I can't say filtered tap water is safer than bottled water because mineral water are packed in plastic bottles. It should be safe to drink from plastic bottles if we don't use it often. Therefore it's recommended not to reuse plastic bottles for more than 3 times.

Oh really! where we go now? Both are common source and used by us. If we go for another sources and uses it is costly. How about the old container called "clay jar" - is it advisable to use. We are using before because if you stored in the clay jar the water become good and cold..

I don't drink tap water unless I have to because it causes me to get a white buildup on my teeth. Also, someone at work told me that she thought there was lead in the water at work... which got me thinking. If they still have lead in the water at my place of employment, who's to say that it's not in the water in other places? So I no longer drink water from water fountains or from the tap unless it's an emergency. I purchase bottled water & at Wal*mart, you can get a gallon of drinking water for under $1.

Hi yanzalong! I should say it still depends on the location. It might be true that the water on the faucet is better, but I would also take into consideration the lines where the water is passing before it reach our home. There are times that the lines are not well maintained and there are instances that the water coming out of the faucet is not clear. That is why personally I opt to buy water from the water refilling station because I consider them as an expert on this particular field.

Our tap water is not safe. Even though we have sent results to the water department of the borderline high unsafe levels of chemicals in it, they will not listen to just one household until it becomes an epidemic. Our whole family has become chronically sick off of the water, and so now we will only use bottled water for cooking and drinking.

better and healthier to drink mineral water. my family has a small store room for mineral water, which we took by ourselves every 2-3 weeks, free, and fresh, from a mountain nearby. hehee! ^^

First of all thanks for making me aware of carcinogen content in tap water.We here in our city donot trust the tap water more often.We use borewell water for drinking.A few years back we had reports that city tap water was not hygiene as its tanks had more of chlorine! that we need.There was worst incidents that in a area few people were hospitalised as sewage had mixed with the drinking water..These are really scary things.So we had decided not to use tap water for drinking here in India.

Yes tap water has other stuff in it like and other chemicals. Bottle water bottle have some good nutrients. I still like drinking my vitamin waters. The filtered water is the best. I am glad I have filtered water in my household. Todays city water is just getting worse and worse. No wonder that people are not drinking enough water in some parts of the world.

I didn't know water contained carcinogen and chemical substances that are harmful to the human body. What I know is our tap water here in our city is safe to take. I just hope those chemicals are not on our water. I have heard about bottled drinks being harmful to us. If these are true, it might be time for everyone to start using water filters already.

Our subdivision use to have our own water works that had good quality tap water during the 70's and 80's, it gradually deteriorated so we had to buy expensive mineral water for a very long time. About 2 month ago, Manila water works (Maynilad) bought out our old waterworks and rehabilitated the lines, so now we already have high quality tap water although diggings is still going on in some places, the money I saved or will be saving from not buying expensive mineral water, I used to buy a 3 stage water filter for our tap, so guess everything is fine now

Maybe you needn't be so sensitive about this problem.You know ,the tap water is filtered before it can be drunk.And I just believe it's safety than you can imagine!But it's always a good attitude to care about our health.Just keep it!

It is not advisable to reuse the bottled water, it has a carcinogen effect to our body. Same thing for the tap water, we need to boil until the melting point to kills the pathogens. If not boiled, it can lead to amoebiasis.