How safe is tap water really?

[BooseysMom]

I have been reading about tap water and how safe it is to drink. It's mind -boggling when you think that we are drinking the same water we use for the toilet, washing, etc.and it's just recycled and treated. But what about the evidence stated in this website..

www.aquacure.co.uk/knowledge-base/truth-about-uks-water-supply

The website states there is evidence that tap water contains synthetic hormones which are contained in the contraceptive pill. We used to collect water from a spring but stopped when there was a notice saying it had been tested and found to contain harmful bacteria. Since we gave up spring water, we have not been able to conceive although we had no trouble with DS. Was it a coincidence that we weren't drinking tap water back then?

Even more scary maybe because of the unknowns, is the fact they have found micro-plastics in 72% of water samples in the UK/EU. Microbeads and man-made fibres are now present everywhere on earth and they are in our water supply.

The article ends by saying...
'In summary, the tap water in the UK is classed as one of the safest and purest water supplies in the world. It is required by law to be fit for human consumption and UK water companies must test mains water for a reassuringly long list of micro-organisms and chemicals.'

Based on the micro plastics, I'm tempted to go back to spring water. But what do you drink, tap of bottled? Can we really trust our water supplies?

Always amazes me the Brits fear of drinking forrin tap water and insisting on bottled.
Maybe in developing country with water borne diseases but in Western Europe it seems ott.

Sometimes it's just that the different mineral content can upset your tummy for a few days — if you were going to live there, then it's worth getting used to it. If you're there for a long weekend, it probably isn't.

Even going down south can affect me! I'm used to very soft water.

I drink tap water but used to have a spring under the farm we lived on and a borehole to access. The water board used to test it annually to deem it safe to drink and they always said it was significantly healthier than our tap water in general which they said was perfectly safe but not the best water to drink. Plus, my Dad who has a couple of bladder disorders and is often catheterised has been told never to drink tap water without filtering it because (and it happened to him twice) the sediment in the water was furring up his catheter and blocking it. So, where I live, the water is of course safe but without filtering it, you end up with a furry kettle in days, it buggers up boilers which don't have working filters and it causes sediment which blocks a long term catheter.

So, sometimes it's worth having a filter!

OP, the article you have linked is generated by a company who specialise in selling water purification equipment. It is in their interested to create uncertainty over drinking tap water.

I'm sorry you weren't able to have a second child but it is almost certainly down to your age and not the fact that you were drinking tap water. I know this isn't nice to hear but finding reason in a advert dressed up as an article is far less likely than all the research on women's fertility post 40.

I think you need to step back from Google.

I have a good friend who works for water treatment and I can utterly assure you, all the water gets treated with however many parts per million chemicals it needs to and the water can't have over a certain amount of some particles per million in it. They are pathological about that.

But Yes! all the women on the pill, all that estrogen goes in the water hence girls starting their periods younger, everybody on Chemo who goes for a pee, all that radioactive whizz ends up in the system, microplastics. I had a thing that boiled tap water and put the steam through charcoal filters, if you looked at the yellow sludge left behind... you wouldn't drink copious amounts of tap water.
We are carbon based life, our cells need carbon, if we have fluorine in water, fluorine goes into cells, that's not good, chlorine getting in our cells as well is bad it causes genotoxins

@Gymohithoughtyousaidgin

We only drink bottled water. Not for any health benefit I just think tap water (or council soda as its more commonly known) is gross. Turned the kids into water snobs now too.

Where is tap water more commonly known as that?

I can’t believe the amount of plastic people must go through if they only drink bottled water.

I've never heard of council soda, but it certainly got called council pop in Yorkshire about 30 years ago, @SickAndTiredAgain . Still drink it these days.

not had a tap water post for awhile.

Dinosaur wee. Water is a finite resource. Etc etc. it's also not the reason you haven't conceived otherwise human race would've died out by now.
The company you refer to SELLS water purification systems. Think smarter.

Has anyone suggested Peckham spring yet?

Have you not considered that buying endless plastic bottles of water might result in more micro plastics in everyone else’s food supply?

Don't delude yourself that bottled water is any purer, cleaner or safer than any other UK tap water.

@NiceGerbil

Has anyone suggested Peckham spring yet?

Cushty

Are you basing your opinion on a website that wants to flog you something you get for pretty much free?!!!! If Coca Cola said that tap water was dangerous and you should only drink coke, would you do that too?!!!

There are micro plastics throughout our food chains, water, in the air and soil. Of course they're in our bodies - adult and children.

It saddens me that there are people who waste huge amounts of money on buying bottled water even though they have access to perfectly safe water out of a tap.

By all means use a Britta filter or similar. But please also consider the lives of children who are literally drinking extremely filthy water, because that's all there is.

www.wateraid.org/uk/the-crisis/water

All water on earth has passed through living beings hasn't it? So nothing worth getting het up about really, just try not to think of the diplodocus peeing out the water millions of years ago that you are drinking today 😁

*And the plastic they use for water bottles contains BPA which is an endocrine-disrupting chemical.
*

According to BIL - Dr of bio chemistry - the BPA concern is unfounded as it's not a water soluble chemical, therefore doesn't end up on the water you drink.

A key part of the water cycle is evaporation and rain. Drinking water comes from up catchment or aquifers and that is filled by rainfall. So no micro plastics.
No water company takes drinking water supplies from water with a sewage outfall in. You could clean it to drinking standards but it would be crazy expensive.

This has been worrying me so I've switched to coke zero. It cleans the toilet as well. The cats aren't happy though.

I'm worried about about the raw sewage being pumped in our waters?

I prefer to drink vodka

@AdmiralCain

I have a good friend who works for water treatment and I can utterly assure you, all the water gets treated with however many parts per million chemicals it needs to and the water can't have over a certain amount of some particles per million in it. They are pathological about that.

But Yes! all the women on the pill, all that estrogen goes in the water hence girls starting their periods younger, everybody on Chemo who goes for a pee, all that radioactive whizz ends up in the system, microplastics. I had a thing that boiled tap water and put the steam through charcoal filters, if you looked at the yellow sludge left behind... you wouldn't drink copious amounts of tap water.
We are carbon based life, our cells need carbon, if we have fluorine in water, fluorine goes into cells, that's not good, chlorine getting in our cells as well is bad it causes genotoxins

Did your 'friend' mean fluoride, fluorine or chlorine? Periods start earlier dependent upon fat levels, not water consumption. Radioactivity from chemo is bollocks. They are not the same thing. And where does carbon come into this anecdote considering that all food contains it more if DP is cooking?

I would be significantly more bothered by random spring water than anything marked as fit for human consumption, and I am quite keen on the whole foraging, live-off-the-land stuff.

It's just that, since reading the Famous Five, I did also graduate to reading about what else gets into water sources that bubble up nicely from the ground. Yum.

What is nuts is how much we spend turning all water into drinking water quality and then flush or use most of it in washing machines. If we could start again all houses would have a drinking water system. And a grey water system.

Bloody hell, not content with antivax we’ve got antitap-water now.

Where do you thing the water from your spring comes from? That’s right, the sky, the same place as tap water does. There may be a few less chemicals this cycle, but it’s probably been through the sanitation process before.