London Water Is Now Free For Travellers… to Drink or for Hair Loss?
Thanks to the Thames Water authority and Mayor of London, Boris Johnson’s pledge to promote drinking fountains across the capital of UK, budget travellers to Trafalgar Square of London city centre can now quench their thirst for free at a newly restored drinking water fountain! There are more water fountain coming up in the near future. So, by the time I visit London in May next year, I would be able to save some money on buying bottled waters in London! 🙂
However, there are some guides here of the ‘famous issues’ on London tap water for travellers to think over before drinking it…
Source of London tap water is mainly from Thames River and being recycled and treated to become tap drinking water. From my previous experience staying in London, tap water in London is quite hard with natural deposits of Calsium and Magnesium. Though these concentrations present in water do not present any risk to health, according to their authorities, hard water can cause scale formation in kettles and hot water systems. It will also waste more of your shampoo or cleanser which you brought from Malaysia because hard water produce less foam and you will need more soap!
If you were to boil some hot water for your coffee, don’t worry if you see some white substance floating top of your boiled water. They are sodium chloride or, salt!
On top of the above, though I didn’t experience it myself, many of my friends, as well as online forums, who has been staying or studying there to have experienced hair loss! According to specialists, hard water can cause your hair to drop faster than it normally do.
So, though we can drink pure and cool water right from the public water fountain, travellers should consider the above characteristics of London tap water before you decided to bring along some empty bottles there to fill them up… – Travel Feeder.
About The Author
Cecil Lee
The author is an avid traveler and photography hobbyist who loves to share with others his travel and photo-taking experience in many popular tourist destinations around Europe, Asia and Australasia. Read the exciting stories with many photos captured on his journeys.
Hi.
I’ve read your article. Tap water’s main advantages are availability, cost (it’s more or less free of cost) and fact that it’s environment friendly (no transport, no plastic bottle producing, no distribution, no water). Disadvantage: it contains chemicals that provide drinkability. So it can be genotoxic, the level of it can increase with old or bad pipes etc.
On the other hand all types of water (even natural spring and mineral) contain chemical substances which despite very low levels harm human’s health. So reducing the level of genotoxic materials is essential.
You might want to check unique bottle available in UK now, called Flaska. This glass bottle is programmed meaning that the information imprinted into the glass changes water’s structure and surface tension and thus lowers genotoxicity.
Cheers!
- November 22, 2011Tap water is not always safe compared to those purified bottle drinks. I mean it’s availability is a great advantage but it still won’t assure you that it’s also safe for your health. What I want to emphasize here are those bacteria that causes abdominal pain and motility.
- December 16, 2011Cheska, I can agree with that. That’s another reason why bottles that treat tap water can be very useful. Read: http://www.flaska.co.uk/flaskareduceschlorination-genotoxicity-watersurfacetension.html
- December 16, 2011