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posted by janrinok on Thursday July 23 2015, @11:18PM   Printer-friendly
from the depends-how-thirsty-you-are dept.

Tap water that has been left to sit out slowly begins to acquire an off taste. Many assume that this is because of micro-organisms. Treated water's added chlorine will take care of small communities of these little guys, but at room temperature they begin to multiply rapidly and can really get the party started. Even with clean water and a clean glass; one sip introduces a host of germs to the mix, in addition to whatever the water may have picked up by ambient dust.

But that's not what makes old water taste stale. For that we can thank carbon dioxide. After about 12 hours tap water starts to go flat as carbon dioxide in the air starts to mix with the water in the glass, lowering its pH and giving it an off taste. But it's most-likely safe to drink.
...
As for plastic water bottles that have been left out in the sun or the car, step away from the bottle, warns Dr. Kellogg Schwab, director of the Johns Hopkins University Water Institute. "A chemical called bisphenol-A, or BPA, along with other things used to manufacture plastic can leach into your water if the bottle heats up or sits in the sun," he explains. BPA, as you likely know, is a hormone disruptor has tentatively been linked to everything from heart disease to cancer. Schwab also says that plastic used for bottled water isn't meant to be washed or refilled, so use only one time and recycle. Or way better, don't buy them at all; use a refillable water bottle instead.

I like to let mine sit out until it acquires malarial mosquito larvae.


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  • (Score: 1) by Gault.Drakkor on Friday July 24 2015, @12:31AM

    by Gault.Drakkor (1079) on Friday July 24 2015, @12:31AM (#212939)

    Lake water.
    Many people get water from lakes for drinking. The water is then put through various degrees of treatment(depending on location).
    I am arguing that lakes sit for more then a day and are often considered safe to drink - or safe enough. So why would only one day make water unsafe, assuming ceramic/glass/mostly inert container?

  • (Score: 2) by richtopia on Friday July 24 2015, @01:01AM

    by richtopia (3160) on Friday July 24 2015, @01:01AM (#212957) Homepage Journal

    The summary is blaming the container. Plastics will leech BPA. Glass is fine.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 24 2015, @08:47AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 24 2015, @08:47AM (#213069)

      Plastics will leech BPA.

      That sentence hurts my brain.

  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Reziac on Friday July 24 2015, @03:19AM

    by Reziac (2489) on Friday July 24 2015, @03:19AM (#212992) Homepage

    Back in 1984 I filled a 5 gallon water jug from a friend's deep well, and set it aside as an emergency stash. This water was still utterly pristine, and tasted as good as ever, when I finally used the last of it -- in 2012. Who knows how many centuries it spent in the aquifer the well taps into.

    That water has been circulating in that lake for some years, too.

    As to shit growing in water -- this requires nutrients. If organics are filtered out, nutrients are lacking, at least until you spit in it a few times, or crap falls into it. As to algae that can produce its own nutrients via sunlight -- for the most part it is not harmful (indeed, the oxygenation it produces discourages anaerobic bacteria). And the fact is, we evolved to use natural water, which has a certain organic and micro-organism content -- the vast majority of which are not pathogens.

    In any event, TFA looks like to me like content-mill output, best ignored.

    --
    And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.