Asklemmy

Yep, I've lived in Japan, Canada and Australia and had no issues with tap water in any of them. (Although in Canada I do filter it, as there is potential issues with lead pipes and acidic water.) When I've been travelling I've drank tap water across a lot of Europe with no issues.

I live in Philadelphia and I always boil and filter my tap water. My mother did it when we grew up in New York, then my brother and I continued the practice.

Related Billy Conelly joke. May be NSFW, https://youtube.com/watch?v=LSao_EBAR6Y&feature=share9

American from Indiana here. Yep, all the time.

In this US, yes, we generally trust our tap water (although there have been notable incidents of water infrastructure failures, such as major lead contamination in Flint, MI), to the extent that if you get a drink in a restaurant here, 99% of the time it's going to be mixed or made using tap water, with ice made from tap water.

Some folks will use a filter (Brita brand filter pitchers used to be popular at one time, with TV ads and everything) but that's more for filtering out chemicals/toxins/minerals than anything else.

In rural places, every now and then the local government or water company (yes, a lot of places here have privatized water infrastructure which is not super great) will put out a 'Boil Water Notice' but this is generally considered outside of the norm, and you usually expect to see that kind of stuff resolve within a couple of days unless it's a result of a major disaster (we were under a Boil Water notice for 2 weeks after hurricane Katrina in my area, the longest stretch I ever remember). Boil Water notices are usually a result of either a breach of the infrascture (a pipe collapsing and the water supply getting dirty), or a water supply failing its regular quality/safety tests. Our water (can't speak for everywhere in the US, and don't really know the specifics of how they do it) is chemically treated and filtered before it goes into the tap, and the supply mechanisms are usually regularly tested to make sure they're within safe standards.

All of that being said, I know people who refuse to drink tap water, mostly because it tends to have a distinct taste from treatment and from having minerals in it, but also because they've heard horror stories like in Flint. Two things: those folks normally drink bottled water, which is usually just bottled-up tap water from some other place; and I usually see those folks gladly drinking fountain drinks/tea/etc at a restaurant, which is made with un-boiled tap water and served on tap-ice.

TL;DR - the tap water in the US is generally considered safe to drink, in most places, with notable exceptions, and for now (our mostly-privatized infrastructure is getting worse and worse, and very public failures have started to appear in not only water infrastructure, but everywhere)

I'm from Italy, here laws for tap water are very restrictive (more than laws for bottle water). Here in Rome tap water is really good.

I wouldn't call US a developed country

I'm in the US. I don't know too many people that drink directly from the tap. Almost everyone I know passes the water through a filter first.

Although, technically, I think the water is safe to drink. My city sends little informational cards saying how they've tested the water and it should be good to drink straight from the tap.

I think we in the US scare easy, so I'm guessing Big Water Bottle and Big Filter have brainwashed us into being scared to drink straight from the tap.

Believe it or not New York City has some of the best water in the state if not the country. I live outside of the city, and while I can drink from the tap, we prefer to use a filtered water pitcher, but we don’t boil first.

Is boiling the tap water just like superstition or what? or is it really not treated/cleaned by the local water authority to be fit for human consumption? Just curious what people think the benefit is, because in the US and Europe from what I know, we treat our public water so that it can, you know, be used by the public safely?

In the US you can typically drink from the tap but I would advise not, some areas are really bad to drink from the tap, but you should always have a filter at the very least. boiling isn't so necessary.

I once visted Austria (Innsbruck to be precise) and the water there was so incredible straight from the tap. It would be ice cold, so fresh and clean. I think they have the best water in the world there.