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Comment by thallium205 | Hacker News Reader

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https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/3M_Contamination_of_Minnesot...

> The drinking water of 14 communities, over 170,000 individuals, and over 150 square miles was contaminated through 3M's improper disposal of chemicals

Municipal tap water isn't worse for you than bottled water.

It depends on the bottled water, to be fair. I suppose it also depends on where the tap is located.

Try distilling 4 litres (1 gallon) of tap water and see what is left behind.

Now repeat that experiment with high quality bottled water.

In my city (developed first world country) the tap water contains toxic repugnant chemical sludge.

So you're saying that bottled water also contains PFAS?

A lot of bottled water is literally packaged tap water. Anyway https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00431... and https://www.consumerreports.org/water-quality/whats-really-i...

If you look at your bottled water, a whole lot of it has labels on it that say something like "comes from a municipal source". It's tap water sold at a 5000% markup.

Many years ago I knew someone who managed a bottled water plant. They didn’t use tap water, they had a very deep well pulling from an aquifer. They then filtered the heck out of it, and then added back in a very small, proprietary mix of minerals.

Just because it's from a municipal source doesn't mean that it isn't filtered subsequently.

It also doesn't mean that it isn't way better than the local tap water in many, many places.

People don't buy bottled water that tastes bad, and it's pretty likely to taste worse than your local water if it's worse for you than your local water.

>It's tap water sold at a 5000% markup.

it's tap water, processed, and bottled.

The processes often include extra filtration and cleaning methods that the individual corporate groups dictate.

I'm not trying to suggest that bottled water is some tremendous value compared to municipal water, but let's not pretend that the markup comes with nothing.

I mean, yes, the bottle itself is a source of microplastics.

Microplastics is a different conversation.

Which city? Tap water quality varies between cities.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint_water_crisis

You'll notice that Flint's water is safe to drink as of 2 years ago[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint_water_crisis#2022

I notice that the page you link does not mention PFAS at all.

Which to me means "Tap water is safe and effective" is a broad statement that doesn't consider pollutants outside of PFAS, which vary depending on the regional water treatment system and how they are operated from region to region.

"safe" and "effective" means different things between different regulating bodies.

That's not really what people are referring to when they mention Flint.

If "safe and effective" does not include testing for chemicals known to be dangerous, then the label "safe and effective" is not accurate.

I'm sure it is depending on the intended use. It's perfectly safe and effective to wash my car, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's safe for me to consume.

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