I’ve been drinking tap water all my life and I have to wonder: Tap water pipes have a lifespan of 50 years, without any regular cleaning and maintenance. I have to clean my aquarium every week and even after cleaning it I wouldn’t drink from it. I know light and air play it’s role, but still, 50 years? Is the inside of the pipes really staying that clean or is it that the dirt in there doesn’t really bother us?
In: Engineering
There has been research that indicates that the “disgusting” biofilms that line the inside of water pipes actually purify the water.
https://www.wateronline.com/doc/biofilm-may-help-purify-water-0001
>“Our drinking water is to a large extent purified by millions of ‘good bacteria’ found in water pipes and purification plants, Swedish researchers have found. So far, the knowledge about them has been practically non-existent, but this new research is about to change that,” according to Lund University in Sweden.
>Researchers at the university “discovered that bacteria and other microbes are found in the form of a thin, sticky coating in drinking water treatment plants and on the inside of water pipes. Known as a ‘biofilm,’ the coating is inescapable because every surface involved in the process of getting drinking water to your tap is covered in it,” RT recently reported.
If you think about it, it makes sense. Biofilms are communities of microorganisms that cluster together and stick to the pipes, for them to live, they need to feed, and pure water isn’t particularly nutritious, so they would surely be pulling stuff out of the water to feed on it.
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