[eddof13]

Been in Mexico almost 7 years- it's common knowledge, you don't drink the tap water, ever. The destitute who can't afford bottled water might be the exception.

[blovescoffee]

I’ve lived here for 3 years and been drinking the tap for about a year. I’ve got lots of friends with “filters” that don’t actually do anything for microbes, and they drink that water. Anyways, very very few people can’t afford a garrafón.

[whymauri]

It's not the microbes in my experience, it's the heavy metals suspended in the water.

It's like a 0.1% damage over time effect. A few days drinking it? Fine. A few weeks? Still fine. Months? I started feeling just a bit more sick until I cut it out for filtered water.

[ForTheKidz]

Brita filters most certainly do filter out "microbes". Just with low certainty that drops over the age of the filter.

[4fterd4rk]

The majority of the world has non-potable tap water.

[jajko]

Try drinking tap water in Africa, India, Bangladesh, most of South America and South Asia, in fact most of the 3rd world... good luck. Ie India had (maybe still has) high infant mortality due to water-transmitted diseases. Once you can't effectively 100% separate waste water from natural water table or other sources for drinking, everything becomes contaminated.