I’ve always been under the childlike impression that my tap water is clean clean, but when thinking about it today I realised that it’s unlikely that tap water is completely sterile, certainly not by the time it reaches my house through miles of pipes. So, just how unsterile can it be and still pass muster with the local government?
If we accept a certain number of rodent hairs or cockroach shells in each helping of our processed foods, I can only imagine what’s considered acceptable when it comes to tap water.
For reference, I’m in N. Ireland, which is, regrettably, the UK. But obviously the island of Ireland is where my water comes from. From this nightmarish swamp, to be precise.
Stay moist, hydrohomos.
Like, so much insanely cleaner than your food.
Sewers are the giant pipes with all that air at the top.
Your water pipes are filled almost the entire time, and the trunks are literally constantly flowing. There’s little to no air for anything to grow with, and at the very beginning there’s almost no bacteria since it’s treated water being pumped in. All on top of the that copper is a natural sterilizer.
Also, whatever few microorganisms there are won’t generally do very well because there’s not much for them to consume.
But there are some, which is why you should always use distilled water instead of tap water when it’s important to avoid microorganisms such as with nasal irrigation.
It’s a bit safer to use freshly boiled water. You can contaminate distilled water if you keep it around long enough.
But don’t be drinking distilled water or it will pull all the minerals out of your body. Like iron etc.
Now the question is, if these pipes didn’t always have treated water flowing through them (but say sea water), can they ever be considered clean afterwards? Is there a way to clean the existing pipe system?
Sterility isn’t necessary for safe water. You only need it to be pathogen free, and lack dangerous contaminants.
So, beyond that, it kinda depends on what you think “clean” means.
I took a quick gander at how Ireland’s drinking/tap water is regulated.
Assuming whatever location is actually following regulations and standards, y’all got some damn nice water out of the tap. The EU regulations are great. There shouldn’t be anything pathogenic at any concentration to worry about. Since water there is treated, I doubt you’d have much of anything reaching your tap at all. You’d have more particulates than anything else, some trace minerals (which is a good thing), maybe some organics here and there (think bits of algae swept along).
Think about it like aquariums. You don’t want sterility; you want a healthy, flourishing biome because all those bacteria eat bad things.
It’s the same in water pipes; you get a good biofilm growing, and pathogens aren’t going to be able to set up shop, even if they do get past whatever treatment is going on at the source. I’ve even seen arguments against chlorination in water treatment because it’s indiscriminate. It can kill off the friendly stuff and make the system as a whole less resilient to unexpected blooms of something pathogenic.
If you ever set up ponds, you actively encourage bacterial growth as part of the process. There’s aquaculture guides where between the right plants, fish, and bacteria, you can end up with water so clean you’d want to drink it, and can, even starting from sewage contaminated water.
If you then slap a filter on to catch particulates, you’re left with something that’s more pure than if you sterilized the source water by chemical or other means.
Anyway, the EU standards for drinking water are top tier. Go look them up, it’s a really comprehensive and science driven set of standards. If your locale is even half-assing things, you’ve got great water indeed
pure water actually can dilute your electrolytes so its not necessarily good for you if you drink too much of it.
I mean, if you’re not shitting your guts out after drinking a glass of tap water, then it’s clean enough.
Pure water tastes like…nothing. The minerals and such give it the good, crisp taste.
That said, my water is so hard it has comparable calcium to a glass of milk.
That calcium isn’t absorbed by your gut though.
I had a family member who had a kidney stone start drinking their tap water a lot so they wouldn’t get another one. Their tap (well) water had so much calcium that they ended up getting another kidney stone from drinking too much water.
your body wont absorb calcium salts in the water though. you get it through your food, and some systemic disease can increase your blood calcium. its pseudoscience from alternative health community.
Well, you won’t absorb much calcium from milk either, so that checks out.
'Tis a great question and one very worth digging into. First off, I suggest getting The Big Thirst from the library. It’s a great book describing the challenge of water for several cities across the world and the processes used to make your water safe.
Second, I’d also suggest checking out some YouTube videos like this Animagraffs video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsVfshmK0Ak. As The Big Thirst and others describe, there are a plethora of engineering techniques now to purify water on a citywide scale, and it is very much up to local utilities to decide how they do it.
Third, someone has already pointed out that there are water quality standards in N. Ireland. As others have noted, it needs to be “safe,” not “sterile.” Indeed, you actually do want some minerals in your water—otherwise it can be detrimental to your health. Drinking straight distilled water continuously, for example, is problematic because “pure” water will actually leach the minerals it encounters.
Fourth, the purity of water is ultimately about how much money is invested in purifying it. Chip companies and scientific endeavors need higher levels of water purity for some of their processes. This can be achieved through the engineering processes mentioned above, producing incredibly pure water—which is actually dangerous to drink.
Lastly, the purification of water from your swamp is a function of how much money the city is willing to spend, but it is feasible to take nearly any water and make it safe to drink with enough investment in infrastructure. As part of this, the pipes that deliver water to your house are crucial: they must remain full and pressurized (pushing clean water out, not allowing contamination in). I mention this because it’s important to understand that the infrastructure around water delivery is nearly as important as the treatment itself. (Similarly true for wastewater.)
Pure water is not good for you… You need your water to be contaminated with minerals at very least.
Also, our systems don’t like stuff to be too stesole as well, since that will make our defenses decrease over time. Being esposed to a reasonable level of bacteria and viruses is what male you stronger and build your defense.
I mean “reasonable” of course. And tap water is reasonable (at least, in developed countries so places like USA might not apply, right Flint?) clean to fit that description.
PS: there are stuff that will make you seriously sick in river and stream water, against which it’s pointless to build defences… So please don’t do that and always drink controlled water.
Fun fact, in the Alps every small village has a public fountain, where water is NOT controlled or checked, but still perfectly fine to drink specially of you have been drinking ot from young age, like I did. Others who grow up without drinking it, might feel some mild consequences if they drink too much.
I love those fountains when hiking or cycling in the alps. And I’ve never got sick from drinking that water even as a tourist.
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Depending on where you live, you could have great tap water or terrible stinky tap water. Generally, developed countries (UK, Ireland, etc.) have better quality tap water (due to better infrastructure, cleaner working conditions, etc.) but it could even vary between whether you’re somewhere rural or urban. If the tap water doesn’t make you sick, doesn’t look muddy, doesn’t smell, etc. you are probably fine (and if you’re extra-cautious, you can test tap water for concentrations in certain minerals and such). You can always grab a water filter if your tap water is bad.
If you’re wondering how tap water can stay clean, there are a bunch of steps to treat unclean water. There is coagulation, which clumps dirt and other particles into larger, easier to remove particles using various chemicals. Then there is flocculation, which makes the particles even bigger, turning them into “flocs”, through mixing. Then there is sedimentation, which is basically where the flocs are so big they sink and form a sediment at the bottom. After that, you have filtration (which removes even more particles) and disinfection (which uses UV light, chlorine, or similar to kill microbes). I had to search for the specific words (coagulation and flocculation in particular), but I do remember the actual steps from geography lessons.
It’s pretty much as clean going into the pipe as it is coming out. Water pipes are kept pressurized so that any cracks or breaks push water out instead of letting contaminants in.
Having lived in Ireland for a while (Dublin, to be precise. I’d assume Northern Ireland is similar in terms of water), I can attest that Irish drinking water definitely isn’t clean. But it’s definitely potable.
I’ve lived in Norway most of my life, and the difference in taste is astounding. While drinking water anywhere is rarely sterile, water that needs to be stored for a while needs to be treated, and that’s why the chlorine is added.
Here in rural Norway, the water isn’t treated, as it’s always fresh from the mountain. So I’ve probably drank my fair share of sheep turds over the years, but the concentration is weak enough that it doesn’t matter.
Related: Worst tap water I’ve ever had is Houston. Tastes like chlorinated swamp.
I suppose no matter where it comes from it won’t be any cleaner than the inside of that rusty old tap you never got around to replacing. As long as it doesn’t make me sick then I don’t really worry about it 🤷♂️
You’re right, the tap water isn’t completely sterile and still has some contaminants but it’s nothing to be super concerned about if you’re not regularly shitting yourself after drinking tap water everything is fine
You definitely want some contamination in the form of minerals as they give your water its taste. You can buy a fairly cheap “TDS” meter online which will show you the Total Dissolved Solids. This won’t give you a complete picture of what’s there but will let you know if your water is more or less "minerally " ( I.e soft or hard )
Outside of that you can look into getting an ICP test which will give you a break down of the exact minerals in your water, depending on the brand they may also test for bacteria but most don’t. The ICP still won’t pick up on other contamination like PFAS but they’re incredibly difficult to remove anyway so it’s best not to think about them…
You can also look into installing an RO-DI system which will filter out minerals and other organic compounds like ammonia etc but it won’t do anything for bacteria or PFAS. You shouldn’t regularly drink de-ionised water though as it strips the minerals out of your body ( like the calcium from your bones ) so you’d have to re-mineralise it.
Your water is totally fine and safe, don’t overthink it!
I don’t think that the water is sterile but it’s clean enough. Water in pipes stays clean as long as it doesn’t sit stagnant for to long. I think this happens most often when there’s a pipe that doesn’t go anywhere that allows water to just sit.
