Seriously guys! It’s drinkable in all EU countries!
Seriously guys! It’s drinkable in all EU countries!
cross-posted from: https://europe.pub/post/47526
Absolutely not something to be given for granted.
Shoutout to u/UnusualInstance6 on Reddit
136 comments
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Nestlé:
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Well, depends on either your definition of "drinkable" or "all" :D
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I mean, you will find at least one spot in every EU country with drinkable tap water
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You guys drink donuts?
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…you don’t?
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You don't just stab a straw into a creme filled doughnut to slurp out all the creme?
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I've found it easier to just stab the original carton
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Hydrate bitches!
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I'm Canadian, living in Canada. I grew up drinking unfiltered tap water (municipal water) all my life and still do. My tap water has always tasted fine to me and I have no health issue. I prefer my tap water over soda, juices, sport drinks or flavoured water etc, which has too much sugar.
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Germany: Takes third option and buys bottled water. Part of the reason is that carbonated water is really popular, and home carbonators are usually kind of difficult/annoying to clean properly. Also, restaurants often won't serve tap water due to greed.
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I'll never understand countries where restaurants don't serve tap water for free... It feels so greedy (as you say) and doesn't make me want to eat there...
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It was a big struggle for me in germany. I have a condition that makes swallowing food very difficult and have to essentially "push" food down with a lot of water.
I would easily need to buy 2-3 .75l bottles per meal, so instead I bought 1 bottle and brought a reusable water bottle to every restaurant. No one complained, and I did always buy at least a drink.
But if you just let me have tap water, or even have tap water after purchasing a drink I could have enjoyed a meal without rationing my water.
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I mean I'll happily pay for tapwater, as long as it is chraper than the cheapest other beverage. Thats because many (good) restaurants (not the tourist traps) mostly make their profit with the drinks and not with the food menues. The margin is just a lot bigger on drinks.
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The biggest brand of home carbonators (Soda Stream) is an Israeli brand. Just something to think about.
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It's a generational thing, too, though. At my parents' place, they'll look at me like I lost a limb when I drink tap water. Meanwhile, all the homies and homettes drink nothing but tap water.
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I've never been to Germany but this has to be affordable there if its affordable anywhere in the world:
Get a clean keg, fill almost all the way with water, put in the fridge and connect to co2 cylinder at 35-50 psi. 35 will take 1-2 days to carbonate and you can turn it down for serving. higher will usually be faster. shaking the water keg with the co2 attached can have it done in a minute or two. basically if you can already dispense a keg you can make infinite carbonated water for pretty much nothing
you can also get bags of mineral amendments from a brewing shop to replicate your favourite brand or spring.
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If only these idiots could stop making plastic bottles. Fucking earth murderers.
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Tap water decreases your microplastic exposure by 90%.
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Fr?
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Compared to bottled water, oh yeah. Here's some articles from various places:
https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/plastic-particles-bottled-water
https://time.com/6553165/microplastics-in-bottled-water-study/
https://www.npr.org/2024/01/10/1223730333/bottled-water-plastic-microplastic-nanoplastic-study
I just took some I recognised as "ok" sources, but there are thousands of articles about it elsewhere too.
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You still can find glass bottle to avoid drinking plastics. Bottled water usually have less PFAS but it is variable and depends where you live.
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This is false: Water in glass bottles often contains more microplastics than water from plastic bottles, likely due to cleaning agents.
Source (in german) https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/lemi.202352256
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I reuse tequila bottles to store tap water, which I leave in the sun, for the uv to break down the chlorine.
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The amount of bottled water in the EU is insane, lol. I'd always Google it just to be sure, but the tap water is always drinkable, so I try to do that instead of buying a ton of bottles (or getting them at restaurants. I wish parts of the EU had more water fountains and refill stations for metal water bottles.
I'm guessing it's more of a cultural thing from the postwar reconstruction?
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The reason behind bottled water is a mixture of bad taste, hardness and lack of trust for watter supply (age related thing). Hence why additional filters have become somewhat popular (from small bottles with built-in filters that you fill on the go up to large separate installations that filter water for entire house). Everything depends on type of water available in certain areas. Cities by the mountains are the best in that aspect as they are often supplied with water directly from the mountains.
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Officially tap water in Malta is drinkable but somehow several hotels I visited have instructed not to drink tap water and office I used had water filters installed on tap.
There is problems in EU countries too so I would not always trust the official declaration especially when country has higher level corruption - example like Malta.
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It's because aside from a few countries, everyone puts chlorine in their water. It stinks and tastes awefull
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In some EU countries it's pretty bad tasting though. Too much chlorine for me to really get used to.
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Yeah. I'll drink tap water if I need to, but I'm not such a huge fan of limestone. I know it's not bad for me and in sane amounts it doesn't affect the flavour too much, but my tap water has way too much.
I've lived in other cities in the same country where water tasted way better. So it's not that I've ruined my taste buds by drinking copious amounts of carbonated mineral water, it's that in the particular city I live, every apartment has had kinda shit tap water. Of course it's all city water.
My friend's parents' home has tap water that comes from a spring on their own property. It has a lot of iron and that water tastes pretty damn good. My own childhood home has a well that the pump lifts water from. It's not excellent, but it's still better than the tap water in my current city.
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Chlorine is kinda fragile, you can boil it or use uv (sunlight) to break it down. I find Melbourne water tastes bleachy from the tap.
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Better for your teef as well.
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What european water filter do you guys use for tap water ?
I personally use Brita, which is from Germany (and not Britain or Brittany)
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I've used a Brita jug, but with no name filters from the grocery store.
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None. Most of these plasticky filters are bullshit.
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Brita is the most popular here as well. I have a water jug from them. While the tap water is perfectly drinkable here I like to filter the water I use for tea and coffee. The tea tastes better and the coffee machine gets less limescale.
Also worth mentioning BWT (Austrian brand) home filtering systems and water filter manufacturers. My sister has on of them fancy kitchen taps with built-in filtered water option and it uses a big BWT filter.
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Are you American? Who needs filters for tap water?
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When I lived in Warsaw tap water tasted like public swimming pool water after boiling old shoe for an hour.
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Filters can get rid of unwanted minerals and some machines like espresso machines require cleanest water. I have some of the best tasting drinking water in the world, almost iceland level but it has high limestone content and I need to filter it twice for my espresso machine.
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No need to resolve to anti-americanism, water is fine where I live, it just tastes better with a filter
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Some European tap water is disgusting, I'm sorry to inform you
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Aquafloow is a cheaper knockoff that fits Brita jugs.
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I use some rando german filters that fit my fridge, that I found online.
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No need for that in Germany...
Using it wrong or too long can make things way worse.
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Heavily depends on where you live in Germany. It should be healthy (by law) and fairly tasty to drink everywhere in theorie, but in reality it is not. Especially depending on the landlord, old pipes can make drinking water range from tasting bad to being unhealthy. Yes, that is against the law, but landlords abusing the shit out of their position of power happens everywhere and a lot more than many probably realize.
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I don't need to use a filter, but I do keep a jug of filtered water in the fridge for the summer when I want a nice pre-chilled drink. I, too, use Brita.
I wonder if it does anything for microplastics?
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... Filter?
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Not feasible to drink tap water in every EU country though.
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Which countries is it not OK in? I don’t ever remember it being a problem anywhere I went. But mostly I stay in Western / Central Europe I guess. Hi from Portugal.
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I've never lived in a place where the water isn't drinkable, but I've seldom drank from the tap without filtration. Water is so vital to us, it just seems wise to be careful.
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Keep in mind that more surface area usually means more bacteria. Afaik there's is nothing wrong with the usual changable filters (although there are a few horrid ones).
But many private households tend to underestimate how dirty these things get, even after a short time.
Since water supplied by the municipality is usually fine and most bad stuff happens as a last-mile problem, I shower in the morning (which I have to do anyway, but it also flushes most pipes) and then wash out a large stainless steel beaker before filling it up and drinking from it for most of the day.
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US: 100/100 Score. Looking at you, Flint Michigan :D I don't know what cherrypicking bullshit they had to do to get that result.
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Yale University’s Environmental Performance Index, which tracks 40 performance indicators—including “Sanitation & Drinking Water”—in order to pinpoint the most environmentally friendly countries in the world. Additional performance indicators tracked by the EPI include environmental health, climate change mitigation, air quality, waste management, biodiversity, fishery populations, and more.
Sounds a bit like "stuff in place doing things" rather than actual quality tests. If so a bit of greenwashing seems feasible.
Sounds more like a development index than a quality index.
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Flint is a very small percentage of the population, so even if everyone in Flint was affected, which they weren't, it would still be possible to get a 100/100 score. The problem with Flint's water was highly publicized because of how uncommon it is for water to be unsafe in America.
The legal limit for lead in drinking water in the EU is 10 ug/L. Lots of places in the EU are above that.
Flint, at the height of the crisis, had a median of 3.5 ug/L, but 17% of samples were over 15. Compare that to the study I linked, which shows Vienna having 18% of samples over 25.
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I have never seen any other country than the USA where you can set tap water on fire.
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I definitely dont believe the US is 100%, sounds like they just decided all the lead water was not drinking water so in fact only drinkable water is drinking water.
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Or Kofola! They also have it from the tap
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As a EU citizen I always buy my water bottled instead of from the tap, not only does it taste better.. but my family used to have a water distiller when I was growing up and we sometimes put tap water inside of it and after the distilling process the residue left was disgusting and gooey, even with some rust laced in (this was in the Côte d'Azur for context) in comparison most good quality bottled water just left a trace mineral residue. Safe to say I'd rather drink mineral residue over rust!
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Yo, that water come in plastic bottles? You know the plastic leaches forever chemicals into the water. Also, you've created a few tonnes of plastic waste by drinking water this way. So well done you.
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Fun fact: iron oxide is food safe. It's being used to make glittery drinks.
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Rust is completely fine.
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Definitely not a German who made this one.
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The French might disagree with you.
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No it's not, aside from a few select countries like the Netherlands, it stinks of bleach just like the USA. It's clean yes, but it smells like a pool
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I've never smelled chlorine or any other artificial chemicals in German tap water. It's often pretty hard, though, which is a bit of a pain for e.g. coffeemakers.
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In Germany, chlorine is extremely rarely used, only if the water from the wells is possibly contaminated with bacteria or, temporarily, if there have been issues with the water tubes.
Especially in Spain, it's more common.
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136 comments