Health : Is it Safe to Drink Tap water rather than Filtered Water? -A Doc answers

Years back when pipe-borne water became popular among average Nigerians, it was seen with a level of decency compared to fetching drinking water from Rivers and mud-walled wells. Pipe-borne water was the next best thing! and yes, an opportuned Nigerian having pipe-borne water run around his water would prefer to die of thirst at the case of no tap when outdoors or as a visitor at a neighbour's place.

Filtered water came, in form of table water and the popular Sachet water (pure water), and tap water suddenly started becoming infected with various hard-to-pronounce bacteria and fungi (as the case may be) but amidst this, we still find ourselves drinking tap water even with the mind that this might be harmful to our health, so the story is: is drinking tap water really safe after all or downright dangerous and 'hazardous'?

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In general, tap water provides some
health benefits. While minimal, if you don't mind tap water you might want to stick with it. Dr. Stewart explains:

In general, there are no major
health advantages to drinking bottled water instead of tap. It's also interesting to note that bottled water may contain less fluoride than tap water, a chemical known to assist in good oral health.

That said, Dr. Stewart also notes that some of the stuff in tap water may prove harmful under very specific circumstances:

The only time it's generally recommended that you drink bottled water instead of tap water is if you're in a group at high-risk for infection such as those who are undergoing chemotherapy or HIV- positive or if you are pregnant. You
should consult your personal physician to make the best decision.

Under most circumstances, tap water works just fine. Regardless of its origin, make sure you drink enough and you will have fewer health concerns.

When you don't like the way tap water tastes, but do enjoy filtered water in a bottle, you might think to turn to a filtration device.

While it'll cut out many contaminants, Dr. Stewart explains that you can't get rid of everything: Using a filtration device for your tap water can help if you don't like the taste of it, as this removes certain contaminants, such as pesticide and chlorine residues.

However, there are some chemicals that a filter cannot remove, such as nitrates and most home filtering systems are not designed to filter out bacteria or viruses.

As a result, if a traditional filter doesn't do the trick (or you just find them frustratingly slow) you might want to try another solution.
I love water, but the tap in my current apartment tastes so terrible I got a filtered water cooler (which costs a lot less than you might think). If you don't want to spend much money, you might consider buying water flavorings at your grocery store or getting discount water in bulk from stores like Costco.

Another reliable way to traditionally filter your water is by boiling!.