Despite the dirty or incredulous looks we get from waiters and even some friends, we are among those people who go out of our way to drink plain tap water (csapvíz) both at home and when out on the town. Frankly, unless we are in the mood for fizzy (buborékos) or the slightly salty taste of non-carbonated mineral water, bottled water has always struck us as a pointless and distasteful act of environmentally destructive conspicuous consumption. (You can’t bitch about fat Americans in their SUVs if you are having your water trucked in from the other side of the Alps.) But now Hungary’s environment minister is offering some words of reassurance to those people who would rather drink their own spit than a glass of what comes out of the tap in Hungary.
According to a report today on radio.hu, Hungarian “EcoMin” Miklós Persányi says that the taps leading to at least 2.5 million people in the country are spewing out water that doesn’t meet the minimal health and safety requirements of the European Union, which Hungary joined in May 2004. He also said that the country needs at least three more years to clean up the problem, due to technical problems and a lack of financing. (The total bill needed to bring the local water up to EU snuff is in the neighborhood of Ft 250 billion, or roughly €1 billion.)
What all this means is that, if you’ve been drinking bottled water out of some lingering fear that the stuff coming out of the taps isn’t 100% safe, you can keep doing so for at least the next three years. Though if you’re using it to wash down a plate of heart-clogging Hungarian food, you might as well just go with the flow.
If one serving of food we eat contained ONLY as much poisons and chemicals and even germs than the tap water we drink during a year, I’d be happy. Why worry about the water when most of the food is made of colorings and aromas, preservatives and other chemicals?