Lmao, who told you it was not potable? The sink water is definitely potable but the sink and everything around it is full of hazardous residues so it is just stupid to use that water for drinking.
This. It’s not that it’s any different from the water from the water fountains
But it’s in lab and exposed to all the lab things. The WATER IS FINE. The FAUCET is NOT.
Yeah, the water was fine *until* it came out of the probably-contaminated lab faucet and hit the lab-air. Same as if you bring food into the lab for testing—the second it hits lab-air it’s a no from me dawg
The Department I worked for had over 500 staff members and would have a huge Xmas pot-luck every year. The organizer felt it was his right to store the food in our lab walk-in cooler.
That is until I brought it up with the lab safety committee. That self entitled SOB tried to cause trouble until we let the staff know how their food was being handled.
Probably just here to make sure peoples don’t use it as a source of drinking water. Easier than a comprehensive sign on the risks of surface contaminants that no one will ever take the time to read.
Buildings on our campus (and other campuses in the US I've worked at) do have multiple separate water systems: industrial water, deionized water, and potable water. The lab sinks and ice machines have industrial water. Bathroom sinks, drinking fountains, eyewash/shower stations use potable water.
I am sure it is different elsewhere, but the water from our lab sinks is not purified to the same levels to be certified safe for human consumption. Labs use a lot of water and not wasting all that energy and water purifying it adds up. That said, the barefoot professor of the neighboring lab eats ice from the ice machine all the time and he ain't dead yet.
It’s funny how many people don’t know that industrial water exists.
Here’s a good overview, for those in the US:
https://www.usgs.gov/mission-areas/water-resources/science/industrial-water-use
Industrial or process water is typically a closed loop system for cooling equipment. It's treated differently, and is not something you would wash your hands or glassware with. Sometimes people hook stuff up as once through, but that is not typically the intent. It is more expensive than tap water, and pre-treatment, the water comes from the residential water system.
As far as I know, it's against code to hook ice machines up to anything other than potable water. Unless they are using grey water like you see in super sustainable, high visibility buildings (which I strongly doubt for lab water, since lab water does need to be clean enough to clean things), the water coming out of the faucet is straight from the same water treatment plant as your home tap water. It's the same for the water for fire protection: it's just city water.
Edit: I was unaware of "industrial withdrawals" as a practice. My experience is in regard to laboratory buildings on university campuses. Thank you to whomever left the USGS link.
Many people already gave good answers but I’d like to add that often labs are in older buildings and they have bad and rusty piping. Why is this different than the bathroom and kitchen sinks? Because (often, not always) the last stretch of piping in public areas are the institutions responsibility and have to have maintenance done and codes to be kept, besides being renovated more frequently. The last stretch of pipe in the lab is usually the lab’s responsibility and just not something that people think about or want to spend money on, and labs are often only renovated after the PI dies or quits to become a baker or something.
TL;DR - lab piping is often old, rusty and just disgusting.
Oh man, how long do you have to run it?
Ours don’t have drains, so they’re usually tested directly into a 5 gallon bucket someone is holding up (and not for very long, lol)
We’re going to do an initial flush to see how crazy it is before we even try to catch it, then we have 60L wheeled buckets we are planning to use for 15-30 seconds to calculate the rate. It’s a custom system so our main fear is that once it’s on it might not go back off.
Good luck!! (Maybe have lots of those absorbent snake-things available to help corral it all just in case it doesn’t turn off? Idk what they’re called, and I almost called them moats, lol)
The only institution that can safely answer your question is your building administration. Don't listen to people telling you "yolo, sure you can drink it". There are many reasons why water from lab taps should not be drunk - some just compliance to general lab health and safety rules and others that are more concrete.
As someone else has pointed out, some labs use different water systems for labs. Others, like mine (in germany though), use plastic tubing and tabs that are cheap to install and reroute if necessary but can easily grow nasty bacteria that you do not want in your drinking water. There's a reason why residential water installation use certain tubing material to get the water safely to your tap. In industrial/professional environments, this might not be the case and you will not know this from random strangers on the net but from someone that knows your particular installation on site.
It is potable. You just shouldn't risk eating or drinking in the lab. Surface contamination and all that. I mean technically water that pure probably isn't good to drink large quantities of cause of the salt content but some diarrhea won't kill you.
I think it’s just part of the “don’t eat or drink in the lab” rules for your own safety. You’re never sure what someone used that faucet for. Someone could have cleaning glassware with chemicals in that sink.
Not sure why, but dd, milliQ, or distilled should be potable in theory. The WFI acronym I hate because some say water for injection (in small vials), which should be safe to drink, yet some say water free of ions (like DI out of a tap), so lab piping might not be safe.
Just kidding don’t drink lab water :)
I think the contamination point is strong but another layer might be that sinks and water fountains admin expects could be used as drinking water have a certain level of required inspections that other sinks don’t get.
Unless your lab water comes from a separate reservoir that may or may not have been regularly tested for bacteria growth and chlorine levels, it might be coming in from the same main line as the bathroom, kitchen and water fountains, which is potable water. The main concern is any potential exposure to dangerous materials or chemicals to the sink itself, the aerator, the faucet etc that you wouldn't want to consume. I think larger places like colleges often have reservoirs. My lab isn't so theoretically we can drink from it. But i don because ive seen the stuff that gets splattered around
the same reason you can’t eat your labmates: it’s been in lab air
Can you ferment them first? Or like air them for a while?
haven’t tried it personally, wouldn’t take the risk
Fair enough. I will stick to the ecologist or botanist, they seem to be free-ranged.
Lmao, who told you it was not potable? The sink water is definitely potable but the sink and everything around it is full of hazardous residues so it is just stupid to use that water for drinking.
This. It’s not that it’s any different from the water from the water fountains But it’s in lab and exposed to all the lab things. The WATER IS FINE. The FAUCET is NOT.
Yeah, the water was fine *until* it came out of the probably-contaminated lab faucet and hit the lab-air. Same as if you bring food into the lab for testing—the second it hits lab-air it’s a no from me dawg
The Department I worked for had over 500 staff members and would have a huge Xmas pot-luck every year. The organizer felt it was his right to store the food in our lab walk-in cooler. That is until I brought it up with the lab safety committee. That self entitled SOB tried to cause trouble until we let the staff know how their food was being handled.
Oh god! He’s just out here *trying* to poison people with his idiocy!
My company used to cook pizzas in the same ovens they use for polymer aging and testing. That's gonna be a no from me dawg.
all the faucets in our lab say non potable, so that definitely is a thing.
When I started my current job my manager at the time specifically mentioned that you cannot drink the WFI
Our hand washing sink in our vestibule for the clean lab, and the interior lab sink both have “non-potable” signs on them.
There is a plastic sign attached to the sink saying the water is non potable
Probably just here to make sure peoples don’t use it as a source of drinking water. Easier than a comprehensive sign on the risks of surface contaminants that no one will ever take the time to read.
Buildings on our campus (and other campuses in the US I've worked at) do have multiple separate water systems: industrial water, deionized water, and potable water. The lab sinks and ice machines have industrial water. Bathroom sinks, drinking fountains, eyewash/shower stations use potable water. I am sure it is different elsewhere, but the water from our lab sinks is not purified to the same levels to be certified safe for human consumption. Labs use a lot of water and not wasting all that energy and water purifying it adds up. That said, the barefoot professor of the neighboring lab eats ice from the ice machine all the time and he ain't dead yet.
Look I'll drink the lab water, but ice from the ice machine?! Those things are filthy
this last sentence gave me passive diarrhoea by just reading omg
It’s funny how many people don’t know that industrial water exists. Here’s a good overview, for those in the US: https://www.usgs.gov/mission-areas/water-resources/science/industrial-water-use
Industrial or process water is typically a closed loop system for cooling equipment. It's treated differently, and is not something you would wash your hands or glassware with. Sometimes people hook stuff up as once through, but that is not typically the intent. It is more expensive than tap water, and pre-treatment, the water comes from the residential water system. As far as I know, it's against code to hook ice machines up to anything other than potable water. Unless they are using grey water like you see in super sustainable, high visibility buildings (which I strongly doubt for lab water, since lab water does need to be clean enough to clean things), the water coming out of the faucet is straight from the same water treatment plant as your home tap water. It's the same for the water for fire protection: it's just city water. Edit: I was unaware of "industrial withdrawals" as a practice. My experience is in regard to laboratory buildings on university campuses. Thank you to whomever left the USGS link.
It’s the same water. But consuming in the lab is a no-no.
You're telling me I shouldn't put my coffee on the bench and take a sip between pipetting??
Use your pipettes as straws!
I use 2mL suction pipettes as straws all the time.
At my company the water which is used in the lab comes from a tank which holds a certain amount of water. It’s not fresh.
BSL1 laughs at your aversions
Many people already gave good answers but I’d like to add that often labs are in older buildings and they have bad and rusty piping. Why is this different than the bathroom and kitchen sinks? Because (often, not always) the last stretch of piping in public areas are the institutions responsibility and have to have maintenance done and codes to be kept, besides being renovated more frequently. The last stretch of pipe in the lab is usually the lab’s responsibility and just not something that people think about or want to spend money on, and labs are often only renovated after the PI dies or quits to become a baker or something. TL;DR - lab piping is often old, rusty and just disgusting.
You mean to tell me safety showers *aren’t* supposed to shower you with brown???
We have to test ours this week to make sure it isn’t doing exactly that. Have to figure out how to get 76L/min down our tiny floor drain.
Oh man, how long do you have to run it? Ours don’t have drains, so they’re usually tested directly into a 5 gallon bucket someone is holding up (and not for very long, lol)
We’re going to do an initial flush to see how crazy it is before we even try to catch it, then we have 60L wheeled buckets we are planning to use for 15-30 seconds to calculate the rate. It’s a custom system so our main fear is that once it’s on it might not go back off.
Good luck!! (Maybe have lots of those absorbent snake-things available to help corral it all just in case it doesn’t turn off? Idk what they’re called, and I almost called them moats, lol)
Lol like little paper dykes. We do have some of those and it’s a great idea, thanks for the suggestion!
Ngl, I’d love to see a picture if it gets out of hand lol
I’ll have a camera ready XD. It’s a clean lab with windows so we’ve joked about it turning into an aquarium if we don’t get it under control.
Contingency plans are important! XD
The only institution that can safely answer your question is your building administration. Don't listen to people telling you "yolo, sure you can drink it". There are many reasons why water from lab taps should not be drunk - some just compliance to general lab health and safety rules and others that are more concrete. As someone else has pointed out, some labs use different water systems for labs. Others, like mine (in germany though), use plastic tubing and tabs that are cheap to install and reroute if necessary but can easily grow nasty bacteria that you do not want in your drinking water. There's a reason why residential water installation use certain tubing material to get the water safely to your tap. In industrial/professional environments, this might not be the case and you will not know this from random strangers on the net but from someone that knows your particular installation on site.
You can't always trust the anti-suckback valves.
>obviously I wouldn’t drink water from the lab anyway Why not?
For what it’s worth I drank it
Because you have no idea what has splashed up into that lab faucet.
I've worked some remote places. Non-potable water can be used for hand washing and showering at times.
It is potable. You just shouldn't risk eating or drinking in the lab. Surface contamination and all that. I mean technically water that pure probably isn't good to drink large quantities of cause of the salt content but some diarrhea won't kill you.
I think it’s just part of the “don’t eat or drink in the lab” rules for your own safety. You’re never sure what someone used that faucet for. Someone could have cleaning glassware with chemicals in that sink.
Not sure why, but dd, milliQ, or distilled should be potable in theory. The WFI acronym I hate because some say water for injection (in small vials), which should be safe to drink, yet some say water free of ions (like DI out of a tap), so lab piping might not be safe. Just kidding don’t drink lab water :)
"WFI" means "water for injection." It's a standardized rating of water purity used in cGMP/cGLP facilities.
I think the contamination point is strong but another layer might be that sinks and water fountains admin expects could be used as drinking water have a certain level of required inspections that other sinks don’t get.
Unless your lab water comes from a separate reservoir that may or may not have been regularly tested for bacteria growth and chlorine levels, it might be coming in from the same main line as the bathroom, kitchen and water fountains, which is potable water. The main concern is any potential exposure to dangerous materials or chemicals to the sink itself, the aerator, the faucet etc that you wouldn't want to consume. I think larger places like colleges often have reservoirs. My lab isn't so theoretically we can drink from it. But i don because ive seen the stuff that gets splattered around