Video footage shows the differences between tap water in the US and that in the UK, and it makes for some pretty horrifying viewing.
Our image of Medieval towns drinking beer because the water was dirty might be a myth, but water like we have it today is a far cry from even the Medieval towns which did have piped water systems.
A vast amount of infrastructure and technology goes into us simply being able to turn a handle and access clean drinking water, one of the front lines against disease.
Are you a tap water drinker? (Getty Stock Image)
However, as a video posted to TikTok shows, ‘safe for drinking’ definitely does not mean ‘completely devoid of life’.
Placing a sample of tap water from the US and the UK under a microscope revealed the surprising number of microscopic organisms which make a home in the tap water.
Now to be clear, if you tried to get through life without ever consuming a micro-organism you would probably die of thirst.
However, there are some bugs which most definitely should not be tolerated in a water supply.
Poor water quality can lead to the spread of diseases such as cholera, polio, dysentery, hepatitis A, typhoid, and diarrhoea, among many others.
Taking water samples to monitor what microorganisms are present in the water supply is an important part of ensuring it’s safe, and it’s also very interesting to see.
In the case of this video, I should caveat that I have zero qualification in microbiology so my analysis of the creatures here will reflect that.
The video kicks off with the sample from the USA.
Look at that! You could saddle it up and ride it into town! (TikTok/@microscope.vision)
This has a smaller number of bugs floating around in the water, but the ones that are there look as though they are more advanced.
There are some with appendages, which look large enough to be going after their (even) smaller counterparts in the water.
Disturbingly, a couple of them even look distinctly like worms.
As for the UK sample, the critters floating round appear to be much smaller, but there’s also a lot more of them.
Again, I’m no microbiologist so I have absolutely no idea if any of these creatures are harmful to us, or something which doesn’t hurt us and isn’t worth expanding the resources to get rid of.
The UK had a lot more critters, but seemingly smaller and simpler. (TikTok/@microscope.vision)
Both the US and UK have clean drinking water universally available.
However, in recent months, the UK water board has been mired by a series of scandals after it emerged that raw sewage has being pumped into rivers and the sea around the UK.
In June and July 2024, residents of the town of Brixham in the South West were advised to boil their tap water before drinking it for some 54 days following a parasite outbreak.
Nasty stuff indeed.