How safe is our drinking water?

Does it depend on where you live?

Depends on where you live, I know that in the Netherlands, the government has strict criteria on the amount of hazardous substance that is allowed to be present in the water, and has checks up on that quite strictly. So it’s not 100% safe, but the risk is acceptable – the amount is so small that the chance of it being hazardous to your health next to naught.

Get yourself a Brita filter, and then no more worries. There is always gonna be problems, you just have to learn to live with it.

Safer than that of many people in the rest of the world.

Safer than water in strams with who knows what that fish and animals are exposed to, because it goes through some treating and filtration.

Safer than bottled water in plastics leaching chemicals.

@Marina

I know that plastic bottles leach chemicals, but apparently there are also chemicals in the tap water.
How can you be sure that the chemicals in the plastic are worse than the individual chemicals in the tap, or better yet, the combining effects of all the chemicals in the tap water?

@chris6137 They do testing all the time. “You can also test your own very cheaply.

Pretty much everything is unsafe nowadays it seems. It seems like all the time you hear that this thing is in the water, that thing is in the food, this gives you cancer, that gives you some other disease, and so on and so forth. If you’re really worried about your drinking water, filter it. There’s only so much you can do in the end.

I live in Iceland, I love our water!

I’ve read reports on Lithium in the water in the States. You should try to google it.

^^ Edit: There are always gonna be problems.^^ I feel like a dummy now.

@TitsMcGhee

My question is: is there evidence that the drinking water is causing health problems in people?

Mine’s fine. I buy it in powdered form and then reconstitute it with the bottled stuff. It’s the only way to go.

@jeffgoldblumsprivatefacilities, a Brita ain’t gonna do jack against a lot of contaminants. You’d need some serious hardware if you want to get the job done right.

I used to drink the water out of the creeks when I lived in a rural environment, and that was water that livestock waded in, and probably pissed in as well. I survived. The water that comes into my house is pumped out of the Mississippi River, and there is stuff in that river that means you don’t ever eat the fish you catch in it.
so is the water harmful?

Probably just as harmful as the air, which is full of mercury and other junk from automobiles, diesel trucks and coal burning power plants. No matter what you do, something will get you. I bet even the Bubble Boy™ eventually dies of something. Life is fatal, ya know.

Tap water in Germany is better than a lot of bottled water.

@mattbrowne A lot of bottled water is just tap water. Dasani and Aquafina, and probably others. This label shows that all they do is add a small amount of sodium for taste.

Evian is Naive spelled backwards. Take it away Jim!

@DominicX: My question is what isn’t causing or contributing to health problems in people. It seems like everything – even things that were supposed to be good for you – is causing this, that, and the other problem that is going to kill you. It’s pretty ridic.

Ask Dr. Strangelove.