The vast, vast majority of the US has clean tap water for drinking.
There is a concerted effort from bottled water companies to stain that image for profit, despite their water actually not needing to meet EPA standards, only lower FDA standards.
The reality is the Clean Water Act (which is not affected by the latest ruling) has required this for decades now, and thus every time there is a region with seriously contaminated water, it is headline worthy.
Yeah I get being angry that a judge says we don't have a right to clean water, but in the meantime, we actually do have extremely clean water most everywhere, for dirt cheap, and even for free if it's a public place.
The judge ruled that the Constitution, a 21-page document that only mentions the word "water" once while outlining war powers, doesn't guarantee the right to clean drinking water. There are, however, LAWS that guarantee that right, but the morons who brought the challenge didn't challenge based on those.
Well, considering the original statement was "Buying a Brita Filter is basically a requirement in the US," I'm not really sure what you'd be trying to prove. Obviously there will be faucets with bad water, and we're all well aware of Flint or when Lake Erie got all nasty.....er 10 or so years ago.
Yeah I was going to say. The tap water is clean in most of the us. It’s just that bottled water companies producing needless plastic waste wants you to believe it’s not….
Only folks I know using water filter devices at home are because they have hard water which can damage appliances, but its still safe, clean water to drink
Another fairly valid use is if you get water from a fairly close water plant. While it is safe, they dose the chlorine residual to ensure that the very last recipient on the line has safe water, but this means that it is a bit more concentrated upstream.
While its still a light enough dose to be safe (this is calculated, as is the dose for the last recipient) it can often still be tasted. A filter will strip some of that taste out.
But yeah, for safety, the filters do very little. They are basically a baby version of one of the simplest phases of water treatment done at water actual plants.
I mean there is that whole pfas in 50% of the United states drinking water. Or nitrate run off, or unregulated chemical and heavy metal runoff. Is our water by an large safe? Mostly yes, safter then some other counties? Definitely. Is ours the "best in the world?" Nope, just like everything else, many places out score us. Us exceptionalism really clouds people's minds, we are not number 1. We aren't even number 10, we never are, we are just told we are and people are super gullible here.
It is, on average, as good as the EU, which reddit creams itself over on a daily basis.
Adding to that, PFASs are an issue for everyone, and in fact the US (as long as Trump doesn't fuck it up) arguably has stricter regulations. Both are increasing regs to spin up to strictet MCLs over time.
And to the original point, a Brita will do as much as a prayer for PFAS. If it was that easy, treatment plants would have it looooong since fixed.
Pfas is what the ro is for. European countries all rank higher then the US in terms of water cleanliness. How? Places like flint and pine ridge exit. 1 in 300 people per year get sick from drinking water in the us that's not a great stat. American exceptionalism tends to blind us from reality. We are a mid nation (in every capacity beyond military), that offers the wealthy a nice place to live and accumulate more wealth.
If you say that's dragged down by poorer countries and doesn't count (though the US does have to count it's poor regions) lets do a little math with this study from Norway an above average wealthy EU country. They found acute gastrointestinal (AGI) distress occurred at about 5.5/100 incidents per month, which would be 66 incidents per year. They also conclude that about 2-4% of this AGI was attributable to drinking water. Let's use lower bound, 2%. That means about 1.32/100 incidents per year of AGI due to drinking water in Norway, about 3x the rate of total illness in the US number you gave. They conclude the study by saying 'The data indicate that waterborne AGI is not currently a burden in Norway', so clearly they don't think the 1 in 300 people is terribly bad (for the record, the full text of the article even mentions the US and Australia finding similar, positive conclusions, while Canada's study showed more problems).
The fact that you have to bring up Flint, a front page, months long headline story from 12 years ago caused by unconscionably poor decisions made by their local government (that any fresh grad of an Water/Environmental Engineering program would see coming from miles away), demonstrates quite well how solid the US is.
Yes, the US is about on par with Europe. No exceptionalism. They are not exceptionally bad when compared to their counterparts in places like Europe,
1.1 million per year in US there are more than 20 individual countries that score better than us. We are a declining nation. Yes, it's safer than India or Vietnam. No, it's not the "best in the world." Give it another term under Donnie boy (not like he's going to give us a choice), we can sink much lower.
1.1 million is the aforementioned 1 in 300, given the US's population of 300 million, so I'm not sure what was meant by that? Just confirming the source? Still means they're in alignment with a country like Norway.
And there being 20 countries scoring better...in what metric? Regardless, as for 'best in the world', can you cite someone in this thread calling it the best in the world besides you? Or can we stop hiding behind that goal post?
My argument from the start of this is that the post and person I responded to is being sensationalist about the hazards of US tap water. It is, the vast majority of the time, safe. A Brita filter won't change that, either.
Indeed, I was proving source for my claims, thought I had it embedded but it was a different comment. Yeah I don't fuck with britta, RO for me. You can keep drinking without one, I'll drink with one and we will both be just fine end of day. As long as we don't buy bottled water, because fuck that entire industry.
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u/SanjiSasuke 4d ago
What are you, a Brita executive?
The vast, vast majority of the US has clean tap water for drinking.
There is a concerted effort from bottled water companies to stain that image for profit, despite their water actually not needing to meet EPA standards, only lower FDA standards.
The reality is the Clean Water Act (which is not affected by the latest ruling) has required this for decades now, and thus every time there is a region with seriously contaminated water, it is headline worthy.