I was gone on a vacation and decided to stay in a motel with fair reviews as this motel was the only last minute option i had. This motel was in regional NSW and the provided facilities were fine as compared to the price paid but didn't include any drinking bottled water in the room.
So, it's 5.30am in the morning, i woke up to get some water and found out that the bottle that i had didn't have sufficient water to quench my thirst. Unfortunately, there was no thing such as dial up room service. Also, I did run up to the reception but it was all shut. My only option here was to fill up my water bottle from the bathroom tap. Having no option, i had to fill up the water from the bathroom tap and drink it.
So my concern further lies, is it safe enough to drink water from the bathroom tap?
Update: haha, those were some lovely responses. Did drink the water from the bathroom wash basin and I'm safe and alive. Even did the mount kosciuazko hike after drinking the water. So now, i know.
Drinking Water from The Tap. What Would You Do?
Last edited 01/03/2021 - 14:51
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Which town? There are no municipal water supplies in Australia that have a water supply that does not meet safety standards.
@No: That's absolute rubbish.
From professional experience, I'd choose tap water over bottled water in Australia any day.
@Entheogen: I've been to a motel in the GC hinterland where the tap water was brown. So I'm sure there are places in Australia where the water quality isn't the same as metro areas
@42: Of course if an establishment has dodgy pipes…
But the town water supply as a whole would be ok.@bmerigan: Don't know if town or tank water but it was apparently safe to drink. Needless to say we drank bottled water
@MrFrugalSpend: You would think that would have some sort of filter for tank water to make it "look" safe
to drink at least
@Entheogen: Only sharing my experience, I have always drank the tap water everywhere else in Australia.
@Entheogen: @Entheogenic Not necessarily rubbish.. I've been to accommodation where the tap water is from a water tank.. Untreated tank water can certainly be dangerous and make you sick
@No: I can vouch for this, while the water in south Hedland is technically safe to drink and won’t make you sick it is definitely the worst tasting tap water I have come across. Almost everyone in town buys bottled water.
The people down voting you have obviously never been there.
@No: Pilbara towns like Hedland and Karratha have tap drinking with a strong chlorine smell, yes. I hated it when I first moved there. A lot of residents do use water filters and bottled water for drinking, But at no point has the drinking water been unsafe to drink in any of these towns as far as I know.
As someone who has been involved in bacterial water quality monitoring for a living I would qualify that statement with a '95+ percent of the time. I contracted giardia many years ago in Narrandera, most probably from the town water supply. The local GP told me it was a known issue. Even parts of Sydney have had bacterial contamination problems at times. That said, I've submitted quite a few Brisbane mains water supply samples for bacteriological testing and never come across any signs of contamination. I consider the local mains water supply far safer than any rain-water tank water.
@OldnBroke: Narrandera is bore water, very hard water and tastes chunky!
Most likely what got you sick though
@hts: I don't recall the taste of the water being particularly unusual. I do recall the giardiasis though, only ever experienced something like that again after eating street food in southeast Asia :(
Palmerston (Satellite city of Darwin) where I grew up in the mid to late 90s used to have the taps run brown every now and then. But most of the time they ran clear and the water was fine. So more of an intermittent issue than a regular one.
That being said, I drank the tap water in Istanbul and I really don't recommend it. The 1 week colonic that followed was intense.
except when this happens
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/do-not-drink-the-nsw-tow…https://www.northerndailyleader.com.au/story/6628471/toxic-t….
We were in Uralla in Feb 2020 and were told not to even brush teeth with tap water.
we also used bottled water for our budgieWhich town? There are no municipal water supplies in Australia that have a water supply that does not meet safety standards.
This is not true unfortunately. There are places in Tasmania that often have warnings about drinking the tap water.
@subywagon: Is it common? I went looking but couldn’t find any current alerts anywhere in Tas.
https://www.dhhs.tas.gov.au/publichealth/alerts/standing_hea…@mskeggs: Yeah it's very common and was pretty bad at some points but they seem to have gotten on top of it just in the last couple of years according to this ABC article. Have a quick read, it gives a little insight into the many issues Tasmania has had with potable water.
Actually those places do exist. Some not strictly health issue but rather taste. My friends in Forster had filtration attached to his house tap and people there generally didn't drink straight from the tap, that was over 10 years ago.
Liberals want to mine under the Woronora Dam River catchment. John Barilaro says he will do anything to make it happen. Believe me, we don’t have the best drinking water in the world.
Will you vote liberal/nationals next time?
Well my MP ol’ Craig Kelly certain;y doesn’t care.
Believe me, we don’t have the best drinking water in the world.
Would you mind elaborating a bit on this? Where do we stand in comparison then?
Google countries with best drinking water? Most of Europe, NZ, etc is better than us.
I'm not sure of the point you are trying to make.
From my experience, mining under a lake doesn't make the water bad but it does stop the dam from filling (as has happened at Woronora in the past)
Do I think mining under a lake is a good thing? No
NB: The dam is the large structure that holds the water back to form a lake.
Read the report from the independent planning comission and Sydney Water. I’d take their advice over a politician who doesn’t represent the area and whose background and experience give him no credibility. My point is about water management generally.
@Emerald Owl: I just do an aspect of engineering. I'm quite acquainted with Woronora once you hit the concrete part.
Unless the motel uses bore water on the tap. (profanity) that. But a good indication of this is that you’re in the middle of (profanity)-all and the motel supplies bottled water.
Tap water is also better for your teeth as it has flouride mixed in.
But things this way, humans survived for a few million years drinking water straight from the source.
Do not, however, try this at home, lol.
This is actually a false belief. Research it. First, not all tap water here has added flouride. Next, the type they add isn't the correct type (assuming their claims surrounding it were even true) for that purpose… instead it's an industrial toxic waste product industry conned governments into adding to drinking water long ago. i.e. They make us pay (via government/our taxes) to use our kidneys as filtration systems for a toxic byproduct, which they would otherwise have to pay big $$$ to dispose of. Third the country they used to cite who started the whole thing off decades ago, has since stopped using it. There's more but I'll leave that for others to search out themselves, because it's always the people who do the research who are labelled 'crackpots', even though that research/evidence often originates from the same sources the name-callers blindly trust.
Australia puts a lot of poisonous chemicals in their water though like chlorine and fluoride. Yes, of course fluoride makes your teeth shine bright white which is all good but we happen to digest that water too into our stomachs and I really don't water my stomach shining radioactive white, thanks. Water with bugs vs water with deadly chemicals. I choose neither lol! :)
Water is deadly if you don't indicate a dose rate…
Not sure why you’re getting downvoted; it’s true. Fluoride is good for teeth but not great for the rest of you.
What do you think would possibly make it unsafe?
While the taste may vary a bit from region to region across the state I don't know of any regions in NSW with water that's not safe to drink out of a tap.
What region and I might be able to offer more info (water and wastewater in NSW is my job sector)
Most of the time when I'm at my home i drink the water from the filter.
The habit of using filter for drinking water is largely related to where I'm from as generally the source of water in the kitchen is different as compared to the one in the bathroom.
Also, I am aware that australia has one of the safest tap drinking water but when I had this instance of drinking non filtered water from the bathroom sink, so this question.
P.S the region was jindabyne.
Yes same here, we always drink filtered rainwater BUT if we're away a bit of tap water now and then has never caused any problems.
Water would likely be from one of the couple of snowy manaro water treatment plants
100 percent drinkable and you could likely even check their website for water quality KPIs they need to maintain :)
Water out of taps in most of Australia is as good as bottled water just massively cheaper (and some taste variations between some areas due to water source characteristics)
Oh yeah I'm not worried about the inherent safety of tap water, I just don't like ingesting all the chloramines and sodium flurosilicate, when I can avoid it. :)
@EightImmortals: Having seen what's in some people's rain water tanks who think chlorination and fluoridation are evil (without even knowing what dose rate water plants operate at) I'd take both of those over the trace chemicals and substances rain water pick up from roof tops and tanks that haven't been cleaned since installation :)
@EightImmortals: Well, that would come down to your quality and degree of filtration.
There's a reason water treatment plants don't just pump raw water through a filtration membrane and call it treated ;)
@SBOB: 'Raw' water, next you'll be telling me it's not gluten free!
I don't drink 'raw' water, though I would if we were near a clean stream or river. We drink 'rain' water filtered through a ceramic filter. If there was going to be a problem then I think we would have noticed at some point in the last 25 years. :)
@EightImmortals: if you dont know the term, maybe google it
"Raw water is water found in the environment that has not been treated and does not have any of its minerals, ions, particles, bacteria, or parasites removed. Raw water includes rainwater, ground water, water from infiltration wells, and water from bodies like lakes and rivers."
so, you 100% drink raw water, and pass it through a basic ceramic filter (which is not what I would call 'treatment')
@SBOB: I would have thought water from lakes and streams would have lots of bacteria from animal faeces and dead animals that get washed into it after rain, not to mention parasites. Remember a Dr friend during a bush walk tell another guy who wanted to drink the water because it looked pristine that it was full of giardia.
And a while back there was Giardia and cryptosporidium contamination in Sydney water and we had to boil tap water for awhile.
@Ezekiel2320: We had frogs living in our rainwater tank when i was growing up on the farm in country Victoria. Big old concrete uncovered rainwater tank - every now and then we'd climb up and perch on the lesge, and fish the frogs out with a yabby net.
That's the water we drank, cooked with and bathed in.
@EightImmortals: Sounds like you've been drinking something a lot worse than sodium fluorosilicate :)
are you an engineer out on a field trip?
P.S the region was jindabyne.
So.. some of the best drinking water in the country then? Lol
Probably - high altitude alpine snow melt water
@MrFrugalSpend: Generally yeah, but even Jindy had a boil water notice active for a few days several months ago due to unseasonable weather.
High rainfall would've led to higher inflows and increased turbidity in the raw water. This would've made filtration more difficult to reduce clear water turbidity and thus made disinfection less effective.
we use filter cause our tank had a frog swimming in it, also there's heaps of dirt that gets picked up as the water comes through
My parents had a house on the outskirts of Moe in Erica, until 15-20yrs ago. We were regularly told by Narracan council to boil all water from the tap before consuming it, due to regular contamination of the local reservoir especially during spring flows, (the supply dam may be Moondarra not sure). Ultimately, it became a habit to boil / filter water from the kitchen tap, even though the water there tasted better in the foothills of the mountains than what you get in Melbourne, the quality was mixed.
Ironically, that same valley is also home to the Thompson Dam, which connects to Upper Yarra and serves most of the (fully treated) Melbourne water supply.I would think that if you travelling in remote / regional areas, you might want to ask beforehand, but the risk of parasites or like is minimal unless it is bore water.
I think this video is very apt and should be shown on TV to highlight the "taste" of bottled water and its
pretentiousprestigious consumers.
https://vimeo.com/302005081except this
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/do-not-drink-the-nsw-tow…https://www.northerndailyleader.com.au/story/6628471/toxic-t….
We were in Uralla in Feb 2020 and were told not to even brush teeth with tap water.
we also used bottled water for our budgieThere are some areas, particularly in Australia's regional towns where water quality drops substantially. We should be aware of that, when travelling outside of your metropolitan area. This site has a database of water issues in Australia: https://water.australianmap.net/physical_chemical/trihalomet…
Our public-supply tap water is chlorinated to get rid of bugs that can cause diseases such as cholera and typhoid.
It's also worth noting that dinfection byproducts (DBP) such as trihalomethanes (THMs) are formed by the chlorination of natural organic matter (NOM) in drinking water. The Australian National Health & Medical Research Council (NHMRC) 1996 allows for up to THM 250μg/L.
Though the Chlorine in mains water supply is typically 3-4ppm (or 3-4mg/L), in some parts of Australia such as Perth these levels of both Chlorine and THM are quite high by international standards. Furthermore, several extensive studies in Canada, UK, Taiwan have shown a link between these and reproductive and even birth defects (ventricular septal "hole-in-the-heart", cleft palate, or anencephalus).
Studies now show tap water concentrations of the chemicals above 20μg/L were associated with a 50-100% higher level of risk, than concentrations below five micrograms.Drinking bottled water is NOT a guarantee of health and safety as many other posters pointed out; many bottlers companies use tap water or contaminated river/lake supplies, with no guarantee of safety. For now, the recommended solution is to use an activated carbon or reverse osmosis filter.
Some light reading:
https://oem.bmj.com/content/58/7/443
https://iwaponline.com/ws/article/15/4/667/27525/40-years-on…
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2535633/
https://europepmc.org/article/PMC/1740151
https://academic.oup.com/toxsci/article/78/1/166/1625640
https://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/water-quality/gu…
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30878738/
https://www.waterbenefitshealth.com/trihalomethanes-in-water…
Surely this is another ghost account?
Why?
Nah, even at 5.30am a ghost could travel through a wall into reception…
Ghosts can't go through doors stupid, they're not fire!!!
Because the question is a long way from the day to day experience of people in Australia where the water in town water supplies is very safe, and it is front page news if there is any health risk to the water.
New arrivals may not be familiar with the drinking water situation in Australia. What you and I take for granted is still a novelty for people who may have come from places without clean drinking water. How about we look at things from other peoples’ perspectives instead of belittling them?
If the hotel was in Collarenabri NSW your probably going to be extremely unwell, rashes, itchy skin also if you were unlucky enough to shower in it. In a larger regional area, you’ll be okay. City you’ll be sweet, nobody gives a stuff about rural Australia’s water though.
This is true. When I was in Moree the water was practically undrinkable. It had an off taste and smell.
WtF?
In Australia?
In 2021??Absolutely. Bore water in particular can have undesirable odours such as sulphurous smells that can make the water unpleasant to drink unless you're desperate.
Was it someone’s bore ? Town water in Moree is normal, no different from anywhere else I’ve lived Brisbane , Vancouver , Boston.
It was nice knowing you OP.
Sweet dreams.
This motel was in regional NSW
Alternatively, mention the town so it can be researched who the water provider is.
I'm wide awake.
Op is woke
Region according to OP was Jindabyne, which for 4 months of the year, the accommodation is full of tourists so yes the water is safe.
Tap water is great, but shower water is the tastiest.
There have been cases of old people falling in the bathroom unable to call for help and they had to drink from the toilet for days until someone found them. So you'd be surprised how resilient the human body is.
You not going to die but you might want to get a shot of whiskey to take the edge if you are not driving.
Thanks for the mixer suggestion.
You should do some research and see the quality of bottled water vs tap water. From what I heard previously it is often better quality from the tap.
https://www.choice.com.au/food-and-drink/drinks/water/articl…
Drinking Water from The Tap. what would you do?
I'd swallow it.
Nevermind about the water. This post gave me cancer.
Lol of course it is safe. It is bad for your teeth if you only drink bottled water, as tap water has added fluoride. I often have a drink by turning on the tap, cupping a hand under the water, and drinking from my hand.
I often drink by placing my entire mouth over the faucet and bracing while my corgi taps on the handle.
Doing it old school.
There's apparently some fluoride in bottled water if it's spring water.
You are not going to die from drinking water from the tap.. Maybe get a little sick..
That depends on where you are in the country not all water from the tap comes from the same source.
The tap water is also is as good as the pipes the water is carried in.
The tap water is only as good as the town water facilities are maintained.
Every situation will be different.. in most cases will be fine
Well it might not kill you instantly, but some areas do have contaminated water that will potentially cause long term adverse health effects.
There are a few regional towns with PFAS contamination, one of which I know was combating that by simply diluting the contaminated water with water from cleaner bores elsewhere in the town. Need-less to say, anyone with half a brain was already drinking bottled or filtered water before those revelations long came out…
Current town I am in has an algal problem with the dam at present, water has been heavily discoloured at times and now reeks of chlorine. Council assures everyone it's well within guidelines though. Can't see how ongoing exposure to excessive chlorine is exactly good for the human body in the long term though…
The usual process is
1. Put water in mouth
2. Swallow
3. If necessary, wipe off excel drops that may have accumulated on your face as a result of 1.Mind holding the glass?
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Australia has some of the safest drinking tap water in the world. I always drink from the tap and never buy bottled water - that is just a waste of money and contributor to plastic pollution.
So, unless the tap had a sign saying do not drink, it is safe to drink