I wish Europe had any drinking fountains. Even extremely-high-traffic public areas such as airports and train stations have but a few or (usually) none.
These are not fountains but glorified watercoolers with sparkling water and, sometimes, lemonade. Most of the time they were not free although very cheap: 1 copeck. These survived up to the 1995, several years after the fall. And yes, most glasses have never been stolen.
Shared glasses were quite safe because every machine had special button to clean the glass with pressurized technical water (several calibrated jets) with some chlorine in it. People cleaned the glass with it before pouring soda water.
USSR has been eco/green paradise: no plastic bags or wraps. Meat was wrapped in paper. Milk, butter and sour cream were poured into whatever container buyer had provided. Glass bottles, paper and alike have been routinely recycled mostly by kids as there was small payment for bringing that stuff.
It’s only after the fall of the Soviet Union that shit with plastic poured into. As well with the fall of recycling, morals, etc. (say what you will about hollywood films of the 90s — nothing upstanding about it).
Eco/Green paradise? Plastic isn't the only poison, the USSR was happy to create plenty of industrial poison - Lake Karachay is a great example.
"The former Soviet Union was the world's second largest producer of harmful emissions. Total emissions in the USSR in 1988 were about 79% of the US total. Considering that the Soviet GNP was only some 54% of that of the USA, this means that the Soviet Union generated 1.5 times more pollution than the USA per unit of GNP" https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/095937...
I wasn’t talking about industrial but your usual Ivan. Just think about how many garbage is produced by a family every day.
As for your article, I don’t have access to the PDF, so I cannot verify it.
The place I grew up sometimes I could see Elbrus even though it is almost 300 km away. That’s for air pollution.
> in the early 1990s the air pollution became an issue of great public attention
This as well may be the coordinated effort to bring down every remnant of Soviet industrial force. You have no idea how many factories have been deliberately bring to their knees and closed down by “effective” new management.
The same way “green” policy is used today for economic warfare (just to think Germany being so stupid as to close their nuclear plants).
If you were standing on top of Mt. Elbrus (elevation: 5.6km above sea level), you could see the horizon roughly 271km away (assuming the horizon was at sea-level, there were no obstructions, atmospheric or otherwise, etc). The inverse of this is that if you were at sea level, 271km away from the peak of Mt. Elbrus, you could theoretically see the peak of the mountain.
So, assuming you weren't at sea-level, it's reasonable that you could see the peak of this mountain from 300km away.
However, seeing the peak of a mountain on the horizon isn't sufficient. You'd need to see a large portion of the mountain on the horizon in order to determine that it's actually the mountain you see in the distance, and not a closer peak that's less tall. This means that the observer would need to be at sufficient altitude themselves in order to view the mountain from this distance. I don't know enough about the math to calculate the necessary altitude required by the observer, but I would estimate an elevation of many hundreds of meters above sea level to be necessary. If anyone else can calculate this better, I would love to know how to find the answer myself.
Without knowing the general area of where you were, all I can say is that it sounds very unlikely.
There have been photos even from Rize, Turkey 300km, albeit very-very blurry.
But I think you are most definitely right: I checked and it’s only 240 from the straight line in my case (my memories of something closer to 290 is more about road distance)
And before someone says Lake Karachay is an extreme example because of the nuclear arms race and secrecy: Take the vanishing Aral Sea, the oil and gas leaks, or the "there is no thermostat, just a radiator on 100% and an open window" heating system.
> there is no thermostat, just a radiator on 100% and an open window
Nothing wrong about it as water temperature in pipes is regulated based on the temperature outside if not at building-level (not uncommon) but at least at heat-station providing hot water to several buildings.
The problem with USSR-style heating infrastructure isn't the heating (apart from unfiltered coal-fired powerplants), but the insulation. Commieblocks were made with almost none, and to this day in most of Russia and former USSR they are bare. It was cheaper to waste coal/gas/oil than to pay for proper insulation and they were built as "temporary solution to housing problem" after all.
When Poland got independent in 1989 and energy prices got real - everybody started buying cheap styrofoam and in a few years we cut our energy usage for heating 3 times. It was CRAZY inefficient because of the pricing of energy vs materials in Warsaw pact.
This "mass styrofoamisation" still haven't happened in Russia to that degree BTW. It's still wasting crazy amounts of energy in all these old commieblocks without insulation.
Fresh air and required heat isn't a bad combination. New York City radiator design was very similar after the 1918 flu.
Modern construction with heavy insulation certainly reduces energy use, but at the cost of air quality. Even more modern construction includes air exchangers, but there's a lot of buildings with insufficient airflow.
I'm not sure if "there was not enough of plastic for wrapping, so we recycled newspapers" is an ecological decision. (That reminds me of using newspapers as toilet paper, because there was no toilet paper either... Ah, the days.)
As for glasses, at least in Lithuania those were stolen often. It was common for the machine to have only one glass.
But, of course, maybe it was different in other parts of the union.
>It’s only after the fall of the Soviet Union that shit with plastic poured into. As well with the fall of recycling, morals, etc.
Societ Union was green not because of morals, but because it was poor and couldn't afford single use packages. I remember when Nutella entered my country, the empty Nutella jars were washed, kept and used as glasses for drinking - because buying new glasses was hard or expensive.
>And yes, most glasses have never been stolen.
I assume that's only because they were chained and in crowded places. Whole eastern Europe of that time was a thief paradise with casual theft almost completely normalized. (source: I am from Eastern Europe)
> the empty Nutella jars were washed, kept and used as glasses for drinking - because buying new glasses was hard or expensive.
You do understand that sand is one of the most common things on earth (hence the glass is dirt-cheap).
Just as an example of those mentioned faceted glasses: their price was 7 or 14 copecks (good thing every one of them had the price stamped on the bottom). It’s less then the price of bread.
The only thing I could imagine about those Nutella being used as glasses is common “this is a thing from the coveted west”.
> the empty Nutella jars were washed, kept and used as glasses for drinking - because buying new glasses was hard or expensive.
I think it's quite common and not especially linked to poverty.
For the smaller containers with a snap on lid only though, because the large Nutella jars with a screw on lid are unsuitable for glasses, but they can contain sauces, paint, screws or nails.
Poland here, we still do the thing with Nutella glasses. Not because we can't afford glassware, but rather because why on Earth would you throw away a perfectly good glass?
What GP described might have been first and foremost the signs of a poor society, but then this only gives credence to the whole "decadent rich" line. Single-use plastics are a sign of a lazy and wasteful society.
Blaming Aral Sea disaster on USSR was/is mostly a PR stunt of post-Soviet Uzbekistan government. The largest part of the drying happened in 1990s and 2000s, because Uzbekistan was farming cotton and wheat in crazy amounts trying to offset massive imports in its new independent economy.
USSR was poor as fuck therefore is saved money on packaging whenever it could. It was occasionally ecologically benefitial as well, but to go from that to "eco/green paradise" is absurd.
USSR was polluting like crazy, significanly more than more developed economies. It treated its citizens as replacable cogs, to the point that after Chernobyl catastrophe it was Sweden not USSR that informed people there was, in fact, a catastrophe.
USSR was denying any problems with asbestos, calling it "asbestos hysteria" of the west. Russia is still doing it to some degree, and russian asbestos mines are causing significant health problems to the people living there. About 60 000 of them.
Soviet heavy industry was ignoring any health, safety and ecology concerns in the name of cost-saving. The reason most "commieblocks" are gray is the air pollution from all that industry and 19th century tech heating with unfiltered coal-fired powerplants.
USSR accidently destroyed Aral Sea. As in - it's no longer there. That's some amazing ecologic paradise.
The only reason Russia isn't the most polluted country in the world is that it's the biggest country in the world by area and very sparsely populated. There's a lot of it to devastate.
> Meat was wrapped in paper. Milk, butter and sour cream were poured into whatever container
This type of arguments are still as annoying as the first time I've heard it. Reusable containers just don't satisfy modern day safety standards.
If they could get away without paying for packaging they will happily do so. They can't because chances of poisoning followed by lawsuits becomes real at scale, causes including not just accidental contamination but also terrorism.
Reusable containers are used at almost ever restaurant in the world that serves on plates.
Reusable containers are currently not cheaper and so they're not used - but the fact that they're not used for non-food items is pretty indicative that it's a cost thing, not a safety thing.
Do you really think what you've posted make sense? Or do they not teach you basic food safety in schools, like finish your food ASAP after removing from heat, heat any cooked food to 84C for 1 minute for sterilization, immediately refrigerate dishes not intended for immediate serving, etc until it gets annoying having to fill in same quizzes every few years?
It really feels strange that this level of basic understanding hasn't permeated across, at least, developed nations. The humanity collectively got as much as 6x mortality variance _among developed countries_ with COVID. It's appalling if things like this had been a contributory factor.
> Meat was wrapped in paper. Milk, butter and sour cream were poured into whatever container buyer had provided.
These were both common in mid-century US too. These practices were slowly discontinued because other packaging was cheaper and more sanitary, especially as foods were packaged further away from the end consumer.
And when buying meat fresh at a butcher in the US, it's still fairly common to get it wrapped in paper.
You can still find places where you can buy stuff "tare" with your own container, but you might have to explain to the clerk what you're wanting to do.
(Basically if using your own container, you put it on the scale, hit "tare" which zeros the scale with the container and then you fill it up. Most bulk sales are via standard plastic containers the store has which are already in the machine's database.)
Switzerland has a lot in my experience. At least the few cities that I visited. They are also very well mapped on openstreetmap, so it was easy to search for a nearby one with osmand whenever I was thirsty.
I presume you mean regular small to tiny fountains. Yes very frequent here, my small village has at least 5 of those. Unless there is an explicit sign that its not drinkable all have drinking water.
Good thing indeed, but then you go ie to France where you have sometimes such fountains too, and often reverse applies - don't drink unless its singed as drinkable.
The rule is the same if France though. Water is drinkable by default and will be signed "eau non potable" if it isn't (and even then it usually means it's never tested, not that it's unsafe).
I've been to Germany, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, Spain and France. Only France had a few in touristy beach areas. The total low is Germany, where the whole country has only 1300 (given ~100 cities with >100k ppl, that is just a ridiculous 13 per large city): https://www.bmuv.de/pressemitteilung/staedte-und-gemeinden-m...
Amsterdam Schiphol Airport has drinking fountains at most if not all toilets[0]. There's been a short period recently apparently where they were getting replaced and so were unavailable.
The city of Amsterdam has 500 fountains or bottle filling stations[1]. The rest of the country has at least 2400 more[2].
Public toilets too. I just don't understand how all these people are walking around all day without being able to drink or use the toilet. Fair enough if it's acceptable to go behind a bush or something, but apparently it isn't.
In morocco, we have restaurants with sinks near the front, exactly like a sink you might find in a bathroom in a house, and next to that sink is a copper cup attached by a chain to the wall. And people are free to come in and drink from that. I always wondered why the humble fountain wasn't more popular
Maybe the water waste in fountains feels worse in drought-prone regions? Even if the amount is comparably tiny, watching a precious resource just vanish down the drain might be hard to stomach?
I'm basing this on nothing, by the way, but it feels like a fun hypothesis.
In the US, they seem to exist in offices and schools. Airports tend to have them, and often with a bottle filler on the side, which is great since we can't carry water through security.
But, just walking down the street, truly public water? Is that a thing anywhere in the US, or elsewhere?
Just to throw a few more out there: Hospitals, gyms, walkable food courts/outdoor pedestrian malls, college campuses, stadiums, visitor centers, offices, cafeterias, car dealers, warehouse stores, some grocery stores... where I live, basically every public space where people are expected to loiter will often have one, usually right by the bathrooms.
Wait, what US cities are you in that do not have public fountains in parks and whatnot?
I'm struggling to think of any parks or high pedestrian areas around me that don't have a public fountain, nor in any of the cities I've lived in. Like, yeah, you're not going to have a fountain out in the middle of a parking lot. But they, to my recollection, seem to be everywhere that people tend to be walking a lot.
As for Europe, they also tend to be in a lot of high pedestrian areas, but really only in southern Europe (Italy, Spain, etc). In northern Europe it seems that everyone is just fine with being constantly dehydrated.
The park across the street doesn't have one.
There are none in the town center (gotta buy Starbucks or similar).
And I don't recall seeing any public ones in downtown DC, other than the Mall and Smithsonian areas.
I already stated they do exist in quasi-public spaces (airports, offices, etc).
Like, if I'm running errands downtown, and I'm not in the tourist zone, there really isn't much without ducking into an office (that might be locked on the weekend).
As others have mentioned, they're very common (in the US) in parks and libraries, but there are also some that are "just there" on the side of the street as part of the sidewalk or path (sure, often near a park but not always).
More and more the newer ones are also "dog watering stations" which is basically a foot-operated drinking fountain with a slow-drain bowl (or just a concrete bowl with no drain).
Even parks that don't have restrooms will often have a fountain.
Neat. That's really what I was asking about. Parks near me usually have a fountain, but only if the park is large enough to have a bathroom with plumbing (as opposed to no bathroom for single ball fields and playgrounds, or a pit toilet for more remote parks). What I don't see often is a truly public drinking fountain that's out in plain view.
The headline is click bait, nothing about it is misunderstood. I generally enjoy esoterica, but can’t believe I just read a whole article that amounts to “those buttons are buttons”.
They’re not, though. They’re button-activated valves with a fairly complicated flow path, integrated screen, extremely high lifecycle, and pressure regulation to deal with a wide range (one spec I saw said 30-90 psig) of water pressure, all while being contained in a single cartridge for easy replacement.
While we're complaining, does anyone else think the button mechanism is too complicated? That diagram has 50 annotations, which seems like too many for a button.
I know nothing about fabrication or physical engineering, but surely it can't be that hard to make it simpler, like a safety pin or a <second thing>.
I miss water fountains that you can drink directly from, as opposed to those that can only fill up a bottle. There's one outside Blackhorse Road tube that only does the latter, you have to contort yourself to drink directly from it and people will look at you like you're mad.
And my experience conventions, even when they give out water bottles in the initial swag bag, is people mostly just want to grab a disposable plastic bottle.
I’m actually fine with tap water most of the time but I want to carry a bottle to sessions etc.
Is it common where you live to only have the bottle fill up? Every time I've seen them in Oregon, California, Washington, and Illinois, there's either a drinking fountain right under it or within a few steps' distance away.
Because you’re encountering bottle fill stations that don’t have an attached water fountain. Your other options (at first glance) are to complain to your public works department or to keep being annoyed by the problem, neither of which is likely to actually fix the problem.
I always prefer the bottle filling stations over drinking fountains, for the 20% of the time that I actually have a bottle with me.
In gyms/libraries/airports it always feels like refilling stations get 5x more use than drinking fountains, but when you're anywhere else, what are the odds you're carrying a bottle?
When I lived in Chicago the public water fountains just ran all the time. There was no button. The city is right on Lake Michigan so they have an abundant supply of fresh water. As I understand it, for many years they did not even meter water for residential service, you just paid a flat fee every month.
Unmetered water service is (or was) common in, of all places, California's Central Valley, including the cities of Sacramento, Bakersfield, Modesto, Merced, and Lodi, legacy of the state's rather arcane (and highly nonscientific and environmentally hostile) Spanish-based water rights laws. Unsurprisingly, when meters were installed, even where billing wasn't based on usage, massive wastage through broken infrastructure was rapidly discovered, an interesting example of "what isn't measured cannot be managed".
Our service is metered over on the other side of the lake (Grand Rapids, MI), but I can only remember a couple of times we've had to restrict water usage (odd-even sprinkling was the worst of it) in the almost 40 years I can remember. Lake Michigan is a hell of a reservoir.
Water is metered now, but still extraordinarily cheap.
Most forever-on fountains in the city are that way not because the water is abundant but rather as a means to reduce the amount of lead consumed by users.
Each spring all fountains run continuously for about a month to flush the system from winter stagnation.
"Who among us hasn’t walked up to a drinking fountain, expecting a bubbling stream of life-giving water, only to experience the crushing disappointment of a measly trickle after smashing in that button?"
That'd be me. I traveled quite a bit all over the world and these seem to be a pretty American thing.
It's also a bit strange because for the countries that have them it is generally not recommended to drink tap water and for the few countries where tap water is considered safe to drink they are virtually non-existent.
It's just a regular ass-dryer. It has a way to detect moisture (and therefore will run until clothes are dry, whatever that takes), but AFAIK that's pretty common and has been for a long number of decades. (I've never really had an issue with a clothes drier unless things had become broken or clogged -- they've all worked fine until they don't, and then they get fixed or replaced.)
But you should be jealous of my toilet: The American Standard Champion 4. It just flushes shit. There's no long-winded swirling water display to make a spectacle of dancing turds. Instead, it is fast and to the point: Push lever, SPLASH, gurgle, and the shit has disappeared. Every single time, without fail.
This present dryer was free -- it's a Whirlpool Duet Sport (yes really) that is probably around 20 years old.
The toilet...was not free. Changing out toilets is never fun, especially under duress. (But this one happened to be on sale the week that buying a new toilet became necessary, which was handy. I already know that it was the one I wanted, having once had an earlier version of that model, in an earlier version of my life.)
I think old dryers are better at this. I think it's energy usage regulations that are making dryers this way. Dryers from decades ago were not subject to them.
Sounds like you need a better designed toilet. Good low flow toilets do exist.
We replaced the old 3.5 gallons per flush toilet in our house with a new Kohler 1.28gpf unit and it flushes and clears the bowl just fine - no worse than the previous toilet with about 1/3rd the water use.
One of the best things you can do in a house is replace "early post-ban" toilets with modern ones, the very first low-flow toilets were absolutely ... shit.
It depends very much on the country, for example The Netherlands is a poop shelf design country, but Belgium isn't. No idea what's the reason behind it.
lower-calorie, higher-fiber european poops don't generally reach the size of american fast-food poops. but everyone loves the feeling of breaking the surface, so to promote a sense of social well-being some countries have artificially lifted the poop instead.
(the above is false, but it is unironically there so that you can look at your poop. admire the shape, the volume, the coloration. and just wait until you learn there's an easy at-home diagnostic test for diabetes mellitus!)
In my Scandinavian country, we don't have a "poop shelf" either. But we don't use the American design with a huge amount of water in the bowl.
It's has a small amount of water at the bottom that receives our "output". There are also no problems urinating as it is easy to either hit the water or the porcelain wall at the bottom, that are much more vertical. Most of the accidental splashes that occur are either because the man is drunk and can't hit the toilet, or that the foreskin is pulled a bit back and doesn't contain the stream as well as it should.
National manufacturers have to design toilets for western states where conservation is a huge issue - might just be cheaper to sell those toilets nationwide than to have a different product line for wetter states.
If that is your normal everyday experience you should consider changing your diet and or your toilet. Neither my wife nor I clog a toilet more than about once a year. The double flush might happen once every other month.
I don't think GP is saying he clogs the toilet, but rather that a single flush does not clear it. We have very low-flow toilets, and sometimes my little kids have to double-flush. It's not about diet or anything — the toilets are just very low-flow (assuming you only have to flush once).
Definitely an odd thing to regulate federally. No reason at all why toilets in New Mexico (average annual rainfall 13") and Mississippi (56") should be held to the same legal limit of water usage.
The low flow restriction was criticized at the time for exactly that but I believe the reason it ended up in the bill is twofold: manufacturers wanted a unified standard at the national level that didn't change at the whims of 50 different state legislatures and the bill was geared towards energy conservation, not water usage. Since toilets account for 30-40% of indoor water usage and pumping water around is quite energy intensive, it does have an effect even if you're in a wet region.
even in areas where there really is no water conservatory problems
Is there really an area that never faces water conservation measures?
Even normally wet Washington State is facing a drought due warm weather resulting in lower than normal snowpack, which is where much of the drinking water comes from.
Many areas that mainly use rain/snow water via ground water aquifers haven't had many if any water conservatory issues.
Usually the problem around here is sewage capacity - but perhaps it's a population density thing, and as long as you're below a certain density and it rains enough, nothing really is needed.
Living in/near Michigan all my life and water conservation has never really been a concern, except when it comes to uproars over things like Nestle sourcing water from the Great Lakes.
Live in Michigan as well. I think we are making a huge mistake conserving water as if is scarce. We act as if water is short and about to run out. We should instead celebrate our advantage over other areas where it is in short supply.
The style of toilet matters in the US. The problem is that the cheapest toilets tend to also meet all sorts of greenwashing (no pun intended) certifications while being unreliable, smaller, and not very good. Tankless ones are far more expensive initially, but are more reliable, flush with greater force, and use little water.
Europe doesn't have the water scarcity issues of the US. When my brother in law from Germany visited a few summers ago he was shocked by the amount of drought news and water conservation instructions broadcast daily on TV.
They do. But most of the water conservancy laws affect sale federally. So even if you’re in a water flush area you can’t really get high consumption toilets unless you go quite used.
Most toilets in Western Europe, at least new ones, have two buttons for low and high flow. Low flow is not an unalloyed good, though, it leads to sewer lines getting clogged, which can be a pretty expensive thing to fix depending on where the sewer access is.
Oh man, don't forget the ones that spray 8 feet into the air!
At least you can usually tell, if the ground is wet around it... that it's going to take your head off, if you put your mouth over it before turning the knob.
p.s. europeans just have fountains, and you drink the water out them with your shoe like it's champagne!
Ha, I was just about to mention the 8' spray and surrounding puddle of evidence. What a waste... too bad I don't live in Europe, I would enjoy drinking shoe champagne.
I'm not quite following; are you saying it's not recommended that you drink American tap water? Or that there are bunch of other countries with sketchier water full of drinking fountains?
I would not drink American tap water. It always smells like chlorine and from what I googled apparently up to 4 milligrams per liter are regularly allowed in the US. This is definitely not a thing in western Europe. We don't need to talk about the things that you cannot taste or smell and what happened in Flint.
Yes, if it already smells after chlorine, how can I know what else is in there. If it was from a clean source, it would not need chlorine in the first place.
> "If we're talking about unknown unknowns, this is true of anywhere in the world."
No, water supply in Germany is closely monitored at the source, at the water works and even close to the user in apartment buildings and rental properties. Also, our water supply is not privatized, like in the US. A disaster like Flint could not happen here.
That is why you monitor the water supply. It is done in my rented apartment by a company commissioned by the landlord and it is done daily at the water works. If there are to many living organisms they add chlorine and inform the public, which happens only every couple of years.
The alternative is dead organisms plus a quite toxic substance in your water.
> The alternative is dead organisms plus a quite toxic substance in your water.
Chlorine being toxic in drinking water is your personal opinion. Your opinion is not shared by the people who are experts in drinking water treatment in the US. Chlorine kills microorganisms that aren’t filtered out in previous water treatment steps.
Please cite some evidence that chlorine in drinking water is dangerous to humans at concentrations lower than 4mg/L.
The CDC says the TLV for chlorine is 1.5 mg/m3. Note, that this is per cubic meter and not per liter. So a TLV of 0,0015 mg/l vs 4 mg/l in US drinking water.
The threshold limit value (TLV) is a level of occupational exposure to a hazardous substance where it is believed that nearly all healthy workers can repeatedly experience at or below this level of exposure without adverse effects.
So much for that, but it is only half the story. Chlorine is a gas and therefore volatile. The measured chlorine in the waterworks says little about the amount that ends up in your body.
What it does though is, that it forms compounds with organic substances (the microorganisms it kills) in the water, which in turn can be toxic or carcinogenic.
Instead of regulating the volatile chlorine it makes much more sense to regulate the harmful compounds, which is exactly what many European countries do.
> No, water supply in Germany is closely monitored at the source, at the water works and even close to the user in apartment buildings and rental properties. Also, our water supply is not privatized, like in the US. A disaster like Flint could not happen here.
I advise you look into the Flint water crisis, because your understanding doesn't sound accurate. The decision to change the source from one body of water to another was a municipal decision - made by the city's Emergency Manager (indicted on felony charges) - not one made by a private company.[0]
The EPA (another governmental agency) mandates contaminate limits and testing. MDEQ (Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, another government agency) was not properly testing to federal requirements. Still, the issue was known by residents long before it was fixed, due to... private testing.[1]
What happened in Flint was criminal negligence, but it had nothing to do with water supply being privatized (it wasn't), or a lack of monitoring requirements (although it's believed testing may have been manipulated... by government workers.[2])
I don't think it is a mischaracterization to say that privatization played a significant role in the Flint water crisis. For example The Intercept headlined "FROM PITTSBURGH TO FLINT, THE DIRE CONSEQUENCES OF GIVING PRIVATE COMPANIES RESPONSIBILITY FOR AILING PUBLIC WATER SYSTEMS".[1]
That municipal decisions played an important role too, is - if anything - an argument for the thesis that the water supply in the United States should not be trusted and not against it.
If you read The Intercept article, you'll see that the company was hired to test the water after the Flint water crisis began, in response to citizen complaints.
This is entirely separate from the federally mandated requirements around testing that was performed by government agencies.
> That municipal decisions played an important role too, is - if anything - an argument for the thesis that the water supply in the United States should not be trusted and not against it.
We arrived here in response to your misinformed claim that "A disaster like Flint could not happen here" because "Germany is closely monitored at the source, at the water works and even close to the user in apartment buildings and rental properties. Also, our water supply is not privatized, like in the US. A disaster like Flint could not happen here."
I've demonstrated that the US has similar policies in place, and neither the water supply nor the mandated testing for metals were privatized, yet the Flint disaster did happen. People and governments are fallible. Corruption and criminal negligence happens everywhere.
I don't think my claim is misinformed and I don't think the US and Germany are similar at all when it comes to water supply. Here we have multiple levels of security that would definitely have prevented a crisis similar to the one in Flint, even considering that corruption and criminal negligence could be at play.
I also think we have different views what privatization means. Here privatization begins at the location where the water pipe enters the building. There is just no scenario where something like in Flint could play out because the incentives are not there.
If that does not convince you I'd like to point you to the list of water crisis in Wikipedia. There have been none in western Europe while the US had Flint and Jackson.
Ok, you win. Germans are infallible and there have never been issues with tap water.
> Here privatization begins at the location where the water pipe enters the building.
As far as I am aware, the same is true in Flint. I do not understand the distinction you are drawing.
Additionally, your Wikipedia link is obviously not an exhaustive list of "water crises" nor does it offer any insight into whether lead in tap water has been an issue in Europe.
"As far as I am aware, the same is true in Flint. I do not understand the distinction you are drawing."
If that was true, how could Veolia - a private company - ever come into a position to be even partly responsible for the disaster? Did all the wrong-doing happen inside the buildings? Of course not, and before you say Veolia had no responsibility: If they hadn't they would have paid no compensation.
"Although lead pipes have not been used here since 1973, they can still be found in old buildings."
As long as it is not a rental building the state's responsibility ends where the pipe enters the house. We do not have any lead pipes in public water supply anymore and for rental buildings we have mandatory water analysis.
Also we are talking about a limit of 5 µg/l where the us limit is three times that.
The occasional home owner that refused modernization could hardly be described as a water crisis.
Once again - they were not in any way responsible for the disaster. They did fail to improve it. The pipes are owned and operated by and the responsibility of the city. I don't know how to engage when you're making things up.
Let me be more clear: The fact that something hasn't occurred is not proof it can't.
"Once again - they were not in any way responsible for the disaster. They did fail to improve it. The pipes are owned and operated by and the responsibility of the city."
The disaster was that harmful substances ended up in citizens body's. Veolia had very well a responsibility in that outcome, evidenced by the fact that they paid huge damages to the victims.
"Let me be more clear: The fact that something hasn't occurred is not proof it can't."
Of course not and that was never up for debate. I brought that point up after your claim that the water supply in Europe and the US are on par, which is just not the case.
Germany's water supply is secured by multiple layers in a swiss cheese model of security and has set up the incentives of the involved such that the holes will not align.
What happened in Flint was that the hole of the city and the hole of Veolia did align.
> The disaster was that harmful substances ended up in citizens body's. Veolia had very well a responsibility in that outcome, evidenced by the fact that they paid huge damages to the victims.
Once again: Veolia's role was in addition to the normal requirements and testing required by the US federal government (which is very similar to what Germany requires.) This was not privatization in lieu of public services, it was an additional stop-gap that failed.
The point being that privatization is not the issue - the same roles performed by the government in Germany are performed by the government in the US. All of which is a response to you stating it could not happen in Germany, because water isn't privatized.
> Of course not and that was never up for debate.
This was literally your evidence for saying it couldn't happen in Germany.
>> "If we're talking about unknown unknowns, this is true of anywhere in the world."
> No, water supply in Germany is closely monitored at the source, at the water works and even close to the user in apartment buildings and rental properties.
(Again, same as the US.) Followed by...
> If that does not convince you I'd like to point you to the list of water crisis in Wikipedia. There have been none in western Europe while the US had Flint and Jackson.
Your arguments have honestly been so disingenuous I can't even continue this.
> What happened in Flint was that the hole of the city and the hole of Veolia did align.
You are clearly still missing something if you think that Veolia had any hand in creating the water crisis, lol. They were hired as an outside party to keep the city (i.e. the government) honest after it became clear to citizens that the water supply had issues - and the government covered it up. Why do I keep having to repeat this?
Your argument has been that the water supply issues cannot happen in Germany because it's a public utility, controlled and monitored by the government. The same was true of Flint, and yet the government was responsible for creating the crisis and for failing to resolve it.
I just think we have different opinions on what privatization means.
If so much control has been shifted from the municipality to a private entity that said entity had to pay damages, it very well means that part of the system was effectively privatized.
My point still stands: The system in Germany is different (different incentives, different form of checks and balances) and would have prevented an incident analogous to what happened in Flint.
In addition to that I have a hard time to understand your point that Veolia is not responsible for the crisis just because it was not responsible for the root cause.
I'm a bit of a tap water connoisseur, and tap water in the US varies greatly. I grew up in the northeast US, in a town where the water comes from a mostly spring-fed lake. The water has zero chlorine taste or smell. I currently live in another town in the US where the water mostly comes from a local reservoir, and also has no taste or smell. In both cases, water pipes are buried to avoid frost, resulting in cold water from the tap all year.
San Francisco area also has surprisingly good tap water, likely due to the clay/soil in the areas the water is sourced from. In other places, like Florida, minerals and sulphur give the water a distinctly unpleasant taste, and shallow pipe depth keeps the water from getting cool.
Absolutely in taste. In terms of safety I think it is okay pretty much everywhere. If you live anywhere long term you should definitely look up the municipal water testing results at least once though.
I cannot add to my post above, but since people don't seem to take it well, I'd like to add some data to back it up.
Here is the link to a paper that compared contaminants in drinking water in various developed countries. When it comes to residual chlorine the USA demonstrated the highest levels followed by Singapore and Canada. After these three countries there was a huge gap before the UK and other countries which much lower levels.
Could it be that you are all so used to the chlorine, that you don't notice it anymore?
From your first link, Table 1, I see that the United States EPA regulates chlorine to 0.2-4 mg/L. The upper bound is lower than the rest of countries with regulations. Some countries - including the European Union, United Kingdom, and Ireland - appear to have no regulations at all.
Residual levels show 3 mg/L of chlorine in the United States which is higher than most other countries (Singapore, and to a lesser extent, Canada, excluded.) What I don't understand is why you see these levels, which are considered safe by most health agencies, as a cause for concern. As another commenter pointed out, the chlorine exists to ensure the water is safe to drink.
"From your first link, Table 1, I see that the United States EPA regulates chlorine to 0.2-4 mg/L. The upper bound is lower than the rest of countries with regulations. Some countries - including the European Union, United Kingdom, and Ireland - appear to have no regulations at all."
The European Union is not a country and it is not surprising that it has no guideline, because the member states have. That the United Kingdom and Ireland are similar to the US is not surprising. I could not find a source for the value of 5 mg/l for Germany, most sources say 0,3 mg/l but the actual text of the current law doesn't corroborate that. What it does is strictly regulate the reaction products of chlorine, which makes sense from a health standpoint.
"Residual levels show 3 mg/L of chlorine in the United States which is higher than most other countries (Singapore, and to a lesser extent, Canada, excluded.)"
I am not a native English speaker, so forgive me if I read this wrong, but the paper says of all the considered countries the US has higher residual chlorine levels than all the other countries (Singapore, and to a lesser extent, Canada, included)
In other words US is highest, followed by Singapore and then Canada.
"As another commenter pointed out, the chlorine exists to ensure the water is safe to drink."
As the paper shows most developed countries have safe drinking water without chlorine. So the question is not why I am against it but why the US needs it in the first place .
Safety is always a trade-off. If I am in an area with cholera epidemic I gladly will consider the chlorine in my drinking water safe. Where I live the water is clean and adding chlorine does make it definitely less safe.
Chlorine is a very hazardous substance after all.
According to the CDC the TLV for chlorine is 1.5 mg/m3. Note, that this is per cubic meter and not per liter. So a TLV of 0,0015 mg/l vs 4 mg/l in US drinking water.
The threshold limit value (TLV) is a level of occupational exposure to a hazardous substance where it is believed that nearly all healthy workers can repeatedly experience at or below this level of exposure without adverse effects.
The TLV you cherry picked refers to concentration in breathable air, not drinking water.
Most health authorities agree that chlorine is safe at 4 mg/l.
Ultimately proactive and reactive approaches both have pros and cons. But implying levels of chlorine in US drinking water are unsafe has no scientific backing.
"The TLV you cherry picked refers to concentration in breathable air, not drinking water."
Chlorine is a gas. I started this subthread with my claim that I always experienced a smell of chlorine in American tap water. Now the threshold to smell chlorine is 3 ppm while the TLV is 0.5 ppm. In other words, when you can smell it is already way above the TLV.
But it is even worse:
While chlorine is absorbed when ingested, this is a lesser problem.
Copyed from my comment above:
"Chlorine forms compounds with organic substances (the microorganisms it kills) in the water, which in turn can be toxic or carcinogenic. Instead of regulating the (volatile) chlorine it makes much more sense to regulate the harmful compounds, which is exactly what many European countries do."
"Most health authorities agree that chlorine is safe at 4 mg/l."
Authorities agree that chlorine is safer than dying from the pathogens in dirty water. We all agree on that. If you have the choice of dying from cholera next week or bladder cancer in 15 years, you sure will pick the cancer. (Yes, there is a link between chlorinated drinking water and bladder as well as colorectal cancer).
Safety is always a trade-off and the EPA's task is to find a compromise [1]. That is where the 4 mg/l come from.
Other authorities and organizations have different priorities, which result in different thresholds.
For example, The International Botteled Water Association limits chlorine in botteled water to 0.1 mg/l.
In Germany, the level for water in swimming pools is 0.3 mg/l.
And by the the way the current SDWA encourages alternate treatment methods too.
Ultimately proactive and reactive approaches both have pros and cons. But implying levels of chlorine in US drinking water are unsafe has no scientific backing.
It is not about proactive and reactive approaches. That point is that with clean drinking water chlorine is unneccessary as evidenced by all developed countries except the US, Sinagpore and Canada.
[1] "EPA must conduct a thorough cost-benefit analysis for every new standard to determine whether the benefits of a drinking water standard justify the costs."https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safe_Drinking_Water_Act
> That point is that with clean drinking water chlorine is unneccessary as evidenced by all developed countries except the US, Sinagpore and Canada.
And once again, whether necessary or unnecessary, the original question was whether the water supply is safe to drink in the United States. And - at least in regards to municipal water (houses on well, e.g. in rural areas, obviously vary) - it is.
I think we just have different opinions what safe drinking water means and I won't repeat the arguments and sources from my previous comments, with one exception: I'd like to stress again the point I already made, that even the SDWA encourages alternative water treatment methods now.
I don't think that WHO list is particularly useful. Included in the numbers of "people without access to safe drinking water" is everyone who draws from a well or a spring. The US is huge and well water is extremely common in rural areas; most well-water users have their own in-house water treatment equipment. Nevertheless they'd be classified as not having access to an improved water source under this survey.
I just read this whole thread, and it's all very silly. You've laundered "I don't like the water" into "it is not recommended that you drink the water" which are really different things. The latter implies that there is a consensus understanding about this, the way there is for, say, Guatemala. 200+ million Americans drink their tap water, and most visitors do too. There are many parts of the US where water could be improved, especially in lower-density places and especially for recently-discovered contaminants, but the idea that travelers need to be careful about it as a matter of safety just isn't true. Flint is a huge news story precisely because it is so aberrant in a country with otherwise good water.
I'm not super well travelled, but of the ~9 of the ~10 countries I've been to, including where I live (New Zealand) it's normal to drink tap water. Thailand was the exception for me.
Water fountains are somewhat normal in New Zealand and Australia.
It definitely wasn't normal in Spain. I think they called it "water from the lake" or something dirty sounding like that. And don't bother asking for ice cubes in some parts of Europe, they might have to chisel it off of a big hunk of ice for you (happened to my mother in law)
Since when was it "generally not recommended" to drink tap water in America? Most places I've been in America the water looks, smells, and tastes just like the stuff they sell in bottles.
Not at all true in my experience though I have seen a jump in the number of fountains with integrated hands-free bottle fillers (which is a win in my book).
https://overpass-turbo.eu , the sample query is already for drinking fountains. I navigated so Berlin is on the map and clicked Run, and it shows me all drinking water fountains on the map. A few of them even have image links, for example: https://imgur.com/d6UheOw
I always preferred the spring loaded knobs (or levers) that you twist compared to the buttons you press down. More leverage, easier to use and modulate if necessary.
I remember those. 4-sided either rounded bulbs or paddles that blended into the central hub. The disadvantage is that they require fine motor control and so aren't accessible to all people. The problem though is that most of the pushbutton types tend to require too great of force to be usable by anyone. I prefer the crashbar button type that requires some force to engage but much less force to remain engaged.
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