I get quizzical looks from people when I say one of my favourite drinks is Singapore tap water. It’s as if I said I enjoy lapping up toilet water like a cat ignoring its drinking bowl. The reaction doesn’t surprise me as Singapore spends the most on bottled water per capita in the world, said a think-tank report.

I have been content with sipping tap water while nodding sympathetically as I listen to ardent arguments against it. But recently, I nodded harder when I read about Singapore scientists studying if a chemical in our tap water is harmful to health. Did I get it wrong?

Flood of plastic bottles

I get puzzled when I try to drink in the figures on how much Singapore loves bottled water in spite of the clean and affordable or sometimes free water on tap.

According to a report by the United Nations University’s Institute for Water, Environment and Health, the figures worked out to each person in Singapore spending US$1,348 (S$1,800) on bottled water and consuming 1,129 litres of it in 2021. It was analysing the global market for bottled water and tracing the impact of the industry on the UN’s sustainable development goals.

These amounts are way more than what the second-placed Australians spent and consumed, which was US$386 and 504 litres per person respectively.

Here’s a figure that may be hard to swallow: Bottled water can be up to 1,000 times more expensive than tap water, according to a 2017 Straits Times report.

Apart from the financial costs of this preference, there are also environmental ones. The UN think-tank’s report said that the bottled water industry largely contributes to plastic pollution.

What’s convincing people that they’re getting so much more value out of bottled water versus tap water that they are willing to pay such a relatively high price? Experts told ST that reasons such as convenience and availability may explain why Singapore is a top consumer of bottled water.

I think the fear that tap water is unsafe for drinking could drive one to fork out the money too.

However, national water agency PUB has said that tap water here is “perfectly safe to drink and entirely wholesome straight from the tap”.

“The quality of tap water complies with the Singapore Food Agency’s Environmental Public Health (Water Suitable for Drinking) (2019) regulations, and is well within the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) guidelines for drinking water quality,” a PUB spokesman said.

“Every year, PUB conducts more than 500,000 tests for more than 300 water quality parameters, which exceeds the more than 100 parameters listed by WHO and other international drinking water guidelines.”

Tap water sold in fancy bottles

I feel that I am getting good value out of tap water, which sounds, well... good enough to be bottled.

This is indeed a fact, according to a Los Angeles Times article which said “the leading bottled water brands are nothing more than municipal tap water that’s been run through a filter”.

Of course, there are brands which sell you real spring water. But be aware that some companies are making a profit from selling you what you have on tap at home.

“Companies buy water from municipal supplies at very low cost and sell it back to the public at a huge mark-up,” a highly regarded professor emeritus of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University told the Los Angeles Times.

A professor of epidemiology and nutrition at Harvard University said in the article: “Unfortunately, many people spend their hard-earned money paying for bottled water rather than using their own tap water. This rarely makes sense.”

However, I’ve always listened sympathetically when people voice their discomfort over the condition of the pipes which deliver the water. I feel that makes sense.

This unease was somewhat dispelled when I read about how test results of samples from 15 taps in eateries, malls, toilets such as those at hawker centres and in HDB flats showed that the water from all of them was “very clean”, even those from dirty surroundings. The 2019 CNA report went on to say that the laboratory results indicated there were no bacteria in any of the samples.

From pipes to the dirty surroundings, I wondered what else I should be concerned about.

Then in late October, the news arrived about Singapore scientists studying if a chemical found in our tap water is harmful to health. Scientists were worried that the rubber gaskets and seals commonly found in taps may have leached chemical substances after being exposed to the chlorine in tap water when it flowed through them.

However, PUB said in an ST report that there was currently no cause for concern, and further research would need to be conducted to ascertain the health risks of such substances.

Will I be reaching more for bottled water while these are being studied? Well, here’s another thing to nod in a concerned manner over: Plastic bottles may also leach substances into the water.

The world’s leading brands of bottled water were contaminated with tiny plastic particles that were likely seeping in during the packaging process, according to a major study across nine countries published in 2018.

Plastic was identified in 93 per cent of the samples.

This figure is a little hard to swallow. Maybe I should stick to good old tap water, and consider filters to block any microplastics present in it.

Previous research had found plastic particles in tap water, but on a smaller scale. “Tap water, by and large, is much safer than bottled water,” said a microplastic researcher in the report.

Tap water tastes as good as fancy brands 

I want to stick to Singapore tap water too because it tastes light and refreshing.

I wonder how much of the taste is affected by the fancy bottle, marketing messages, or the glass the water comes in.

The Sunday Times recently conducted a blind taste test with a panel of four judges who are all frequent bottled water guzzlers.

Curiously enough, the report said Singapore’s light and clean-tasting tap water threw a curveball at the judges, with some guessing it was Fiji Water, priced at $2.60 for 500ml. Tap water also scored just as high as Acqua Panna, which costs $4.30 for 750ml.

“To their own surprise”, three of the panel judges’ top choice turned out to be tap water.

I used to not like tap water because, in my childhood home, it was boiled due to the fear of “contaminated” pipes, resulting in a dead and somewhat metallic taste. Being kept perhaps overly long in flasks also killed the flavour.

I started liking it when I could drink it fresh out of the tap – unboiled and unfiltered. It tasted of freedom.

Perhaps I also marketed it to myself but I connected the idea of the tap water to the sky, land and reservoirs of Singapore.

I love looking at the rain during massive thunderstorms.

I love looking at the clear water edges of reservoirs, seeing fish and other creatures swimming lazily there.

Images of the water pouring from the sky, flowing across the land and finding its way to reservoirs and my tap swirl through my mind.

It’s a personal marketing storm in a teacup, but I’ll drink to that, even if the water is from a public toilet tap.