For context, I live in Hong Kong where most people drink tap water after boiling first. Some may install water filter but may still boil the water. Very few drink bottle water unless they’re outside and too lazy to bring their own bottles.
Now, I’m researching whether I can drink tap water in Iceland (I’m going there in August), and while it looks like the answer is affirmative, almost no web article mention whether I need to boil the water first. People in Japan (a country I’ve visited a few times) also seems to be used to drink tap water directly without boiling.
The further I searched, the more it seems to me that in developed countries (like US, Canada and the above examples), tap water is safe to drink directly. Is that true? Do you drink tap water without boiling?
It sounds like a stupid question but I just can’t believe what I saw. I think I experienced a cultural shock.
Edit: wow, thanks so much for the responses and sorry if I didnt reply to each one of you but I’ll upvote as much as as I can. Never thought so many would reply and Lemmy is a really great community.
2nd Edit: So in conclusion, people from everywhere basically just drink water straight out of tap. And to my surprise, I checked the Water Supplies Department website and notice it asserts that tap water in Hong Kong is potable, like many well-developed countries and regions.
However, as the majority of Hong Kong people are living in high-rise buildings, a small amount of residual chlorine is maintained in the water to keep it free from bacterial infection during its journey in the distribution system. Therefore it is recommended to boil the water so that chlorine dissipates.
So, in short, I actually do not need to boil the water unless I hate chlorine smell and taste. But I guess I’ll just continue this old habit/tradition as there’s no harm in doing so.
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)