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Comment by cardosof | Hacker News Reader

Yes, but people still buy it (and market is bound to grow, ceteris paribus) because they think tap water is worse somehow. And with crumbling public water infrastructure in many countries, that's not really far from the truth.

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Do you have a source to back up the claim from your last sentence? My understanding is that if you can cook with your tap water, then it should also be safe to drink (or can be made safe to drink by boiling it). If you're worried about lead or sth else in your water supply, you might as well disconnect it from your kitchen.

You may find it biased but here it is.

https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/trend/archive/spring-2019/how-d...

Thanks! This seems to be US-specific, and I'd be interested to read about other places (the original claim was about "many countries"). Sibling comments seem to disagree, at least when it comes to Europe.

Tap water is contaminated with numerous chemicals (known and unknown).

so is bottled water

A claim which doesn't hold the test of science. Do you have a stake in Danone?

Don't talk in generic terms if it doesn't apply at all places. In Germany for example, tap water is perfectly fine. Some might not like it that much because it perhaps is too hard or something, or your house might have old pipes, but it is healthy.

Isn't excessively hard water harsher on your kidneys?

Depends on the country. In some European countries tapwater is extremely well controlled and can be considered cleaner than bottled water. I wouldn't say that the contamination is unknown:

https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/en/topics/water/drinking-wate...

Some companies are even selling tapwater in bottles for a good profit, so many drink tapwater from bottles without knowing:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/23/pepsi-coke-b...

Water in plastic bottles can contain solvents and microparticles, and be worse because of that:

https://www.time.com/5581326/plastic-particles-in-bottled-wa...

Not everywhere is Flint, MI

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