When you feel thirsty, do you quench it with store-bought or tap water? Experts say that the latter is perfect for drinking. Tap water is being prioritized by more and more Lithuanian residents who want to live a healthy life and be friendly to the environment.
According to the general director of "Vilniaus vandenų" Mariaus Švaikauskas, Lithuania is one of the few countries in Europe and the world, where only underground water that is safe to drink is supplied centrally.
"Water extracted from 40-245 m depth flows from residents' taps. Other Baltic countries do not have this luxury: residents of Riga are supplied with purified water from the Dauguva River, while Tallinn uses water from an artificial lake. Of all the countries of the European Union, only Lithuania and Denmark are self-sufficient with underground water. Residents of other countries are forced to buy bottled water in stores, but given the opportunity to drink it from the tap, they would definitely choose that. All the more so now, when many are changing their lifestyle in order to live as sustainably as possible and leave behind as little plastic waste as possible," says the CEO of the country's largest water management company.
More confidence in tap water
Although the direction of sustainable living, garbage sorting and waste reduction has recently been followed by more and more of the world's population, various data show that in Europe alone, about 30 million are thrown away every day. plastic bottles, some of which remain after drinking water. The aim of increasing people's trust in tap water and reducing the use of plastic is the recently updated EU Drinking Water Directive.
According to M. Švaikauskas, mistrust of tap water usually stems from a lack of information. He admits that the company sometimes has to face consumers' concerns about whether the tap water at home is really clean enough to drink, but it tries to disprove these fears with objective facts and open data.
Starting this spring, residents of the Vilnius region can check the quality of the water supplied to them on the interactive Water Quality Map (https://www.vv.lt/lt/apie/vandens_kokybe/). Here you can not only see the results of the latest tests of water from all 36 water bodies, but also determine from which water body the water is supplied, and what are the microbiological, chemical and sensory parameters of that water, based on your address.
"Microbiological, physical and chemical tests of the water we supply are constantly performed by a certified drinking water laboratory. After conducting new water surveys of the waterhole, the data is immediately changed on this map, so the situation can be seen in real time. From the number of visits to this website, we can see that the service is relevant and used. We believe that the ability to monitor the quality of water will encourage even more people to start drinking water from the tap and increase confidence in its quality," says the head of the company.
The laboratory also receives requests from natural persons to test water. Most often, these are the owners of wells or individual wells, but there are also people using centralized water who want to know more about its quality.
In the laboratory, where the drinking water of Vilnius city, Vilnius, Šalčininkai and Švenčioni districts is tested, up to 100 tests are performed per day on average, and up to 50 water quality indicators are determined with them. in 2020 a total of over 20 tests were performed in the company's laboratory. of research - a third (32%) more than in 2019.
Water from the store is hundreds of times more expensive
The myth that used to be prevalent in Lithuania, that drinking water bought in a store has a better composition than water from the tap, is also slowly fading away. The interviewer says that the first thing to do is to distinguish between high mineralization and drinking water. Both of them have minerals useful for the body, but highly mineralized water has much more of them.
"If we compare the drinking water we buy and the water that comes to our homes through pipelines, they are equally extracted from underground wells. Laboratory data show that tap water is saturated with various useful minerals: calcium, magnesium, sodium, potassium and others. Excess manganese and iron, which can give the water an unpleasant flavor, are removed during the water preparation and improvement stage. So there is no difference between drinking water from the tap and from the store, except that the latter is also uneconomical, because a bottle of drinking water is on average 300 times more expensive than the same water that flows from the tap," he comments.
M. Švaikauskas mentions that sometimes there are people who think that it is possible to drink water from the well in the homestead, but not from the tap, although often the opposite is true.
"Centrally supplied water is filtered and purified in water treatment facilities before it flows into consumers' taps. Meanwhile, wells are not deep wells, they accumulate groundwater that interacts with the environment, so it can be affected by external chemical and microbiological pollution, various harmful substances, nitrates can be found in it. Therefore, it is recommended to regularly test well water if it is used for food production, and it is better not to drink water from an unknown well," assures the general director of "Vilniaus Vandenės".
Wfilters brand experts agree that the tap water in all of Lithuania, as well as in the Vilnius region and the city, is of high quality and suitable for consumption, but consumers often do not know that it is hard, and water hardness is not regulated by any laws. Hard water causes a number of problems: it leaves white lime deposits, shortens the life of household appliances, the minerals in the water draw moisture, thus drying the skin, hair, clogging pores, causing itching and redness, so hard water is extremely harmful for sensitive people, as well as baby skin Installation is recommended for those who want to improve water quality water filters. They allow you to save household appliances, extend their service life, help save electricity (non-calcified heating elements work significantly more efficiently), use less cosmetics and cleaning agents, preserve healthy skin and hair, etc. And this is only a small part of the benefits of soft water.
I don't know what you're writing here, what does it mean that water is taken from a well... before it reaches a person, it passes through rusted pipes and lime: (if the gaskets of the mixer are not supported by stone and lime, then what kind of direct drinking are you talking about :((((
I have about 256 ppm (TDS), the water is "hard"...
I drink water from the tap, but only boiled.