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Show HN: An interactive map of countries by tap water quality

iswatersafetodrink.in

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Re: Show HN: An interactive map of countries by tap water quality

#71

Post by _-___________-_ »

mosselman wrote: post #67

Belgium having the same quality on the map as the Netherlands shows me that the source of then information is wrong or the scale isn’t nuanced enough to be of any use to me. Belgian tap water should, on any scale, be at least a category lower than Dutch tap water. Belgian tap water is horrible compared to Dutch water. Source: I lived in Brussels for 5 years. Could be just the brusselonian water, but there is a reason…

Taste/appearance and safety are not really the same thing. Many places have water that people find unpleasant due to mineral content or other factors, but which is safe to drink.

Re: Show HN: An interactive map of countries by tap water quality

#72

Post by _-___________-_ »

smayr wrote: post #69
sesm wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've checked my city here is the link, https://www.iswatersafetodrink.in/Russia/Nizhny-Novgorod I don't know where 350$ is coming from. Most of the people here order drinking water in 20L bottles. Bottles are not thrown away, but collected and reused by water company. We spend about 150$/year*person on this, including delivery costs.

You are right, that's one thing I missed. Water bottle prices are determined on a country-level (I assume average bottle prices are higher in Moscow, I should show them ideally on a city-level) and I'm assuming people are buying 1.5L bottles for simplicity's sake. I am planning to provide a calculator soon to add more flexibility to the savings calculations.

I've lived in many places where the tap water is not safe to drink, and in all those places, nobody except tourists was buying 1.5L bottles of water.

Re: Show HN: An interactive map of countries by tap water quality

#73

Post by _-___________-_ »

growlist wrote: post #10

I'm dubious about the Numbeo value for the UK - 75.36 / 100 seems pretty low. UK tap water is of an extremely high standard.

It's of a high standard, but I wouldn't say extremely high. Many places with lower population and large amounts of deep aquifer water have much better quality water than the UK.

Re: Show HN: An interactive map of countries by tap water quality

#74

Post by smayr »

mosselman wrote: post #67

Belgium having the same quality on the map as the Netherlands shows me that the source of then information is wrong or the scale isn’t nuanced enough to be of any use to me. Belgian tap water should, on any scale, be at least a category lower than Dutch tap water. Belgian tap water is horrible compared to Dutch water. Source: I lived in Brussels for 5 years. Could be just the brusselonian water, but there is a reason…

You are right, I should have specified that tap water quality doesn't include the taste of it.

Apart from that Belgium tap water is perfectly safe to drink! I don't know specifics about the tap water in Belgium but something as simple as a carbon filter removes Chlorine and a lot of the bad taste!

I have been to Belgium before, to Brussels and Leuven, as far as I remember I liked the tap water better in Leuven, but that's just anecdotal. What I want to say with that is that tap water usually varies from area to area.

Re: Show HN: An interactive map of countries by tap water quality

#75

Post by _-___________-_ »

goodcanadian wrote: post #64
toshk wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could have misunderstood! But when you can smell it when you shower and taste it when you drink it, there is a considerable amount of residue of chemicals in the water. Maybe I smell it because I'm used to water without it. I don't know if it's actually harmful, but when there are alternatives widely deployed, for instance in the Netherlands I don't see the reason for taking the risk.

Canada is a very large country with a wide variety of water. I'm quite surprised that you were somewhere where you were able to smell/taste chlorine in the water as that has not been my experience, but at least one other commenter seems to agree with you. That said, small amounts of chlorine are perfectly safe.

I grew up in a city where chlorine is not used. In Canada, and almost every other country I've lived in, I can clearly taste the chlorine in the water, while locals always insisted it was tasteless.

Re: Show HN: An interactive map of countries by tap water quality

#76

Post by smayr »

IAmEveryone wrote: post #25
vanilla-almond wrote: post #14

It would be interesting to add statistics for consumption of bottled water for individual countries where this data is available. Bottled water is consumed in many countries even when the quality of tap water is perfectly safe. For example, here is per capita consumption of bottled water in Europe in 2017, by country: https://www.statista.com/statistics/455422/bottled-water-con...

Note that this includes sparkling water. At least in Germany, I would estimate >80% of bottled water being sold to be sparkling.

That's interesting, I'll look into that! Sparkling water might be indeed a reason why people buy bottled water, although there are household solutions for that as well.

Re: Show HN: An interactive map of countries by tap water quality

#77

Post by smayr »

cauk wrote: post #3

Hey man, really like it. Found out that the water where I am might be a bit sketchy - didn't know. What are you using for the city/country autocomplete?

Hey, glad you like it!

Yes I am using Awesomplete with some custom CSS and loading the autocomplete results on page load (I figured that's more performant in my case than loading it on each keystroke).

Re: Show HN: An interactive map of countries by tap water quality

#78

Post by smayr »

avh02 wrote: post #30

One thing i found interesting while living in Dubai was that (from what I heard) the water authorities provided potable water to buildings, but most buildings had dubious storage/distribution. I always bought bottled water there, that decision felt justified when my water came out sandy one day. (Though I suspect the building). I had friends who drank tap water for years and were okay, so mileage varies.

That's a very interesting fact, thanks for that!
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