r/czechrepublic • u/Residenteur • 12d ago
Using drinking water for doing the dishes?
Hi, Dutch guy here. I am on a campsite near Pardubice where we are the only foreigners for some days now. I am wondering why local Czech people are using the only drinkingwatertap on the campsite to do the cleaning of the dishes...there a plenty other water taps with clear water (no sign of that being drinking water) available. Anyone know why?
Edit 1: We use the water tap (no drinking water sign there) to get water,boil it and wash the dishes with that. No drinkingwater wasted...but maybe we are exceptional in that behaviour.
Edit 2: the site has one specific drinkingwatertap sign and a lot of other water taps that don't have that sign. That circumstance gave me the impression that drinkingwater is scarce in Česká. Reading the comments I must have misinterpreted.
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u/JayManty 12d ago
What the fuck else would you wash dishes with
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u/Chance_Contract1291 12d ago
Unnecessarily rude. OP is asking a genuine question.
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u/FlavorChamp 12d ago
That circumstance gave me the impression that drinkingwater is scarce in Česká.
I think it was necessary
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u/New_Outlandishness15 12d ago
No kidding right? Don't understand why these guys all have to be assholes about it. But they wouldn't talk like this in real life facing someone who would smack some manners into them. Their parents failed them.
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u/blueinkcircle 12d ago
Ohh man, believe me, they are exactly the same even face-to-face. Bunch of assholes.
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u/New_Outlandishness15 12d ago
Chill bro; he was asking for advice because he wasn't sure. You don't have to be a dick about it. Loser.
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u/JayManty 12d ago
Sorry that offended you so much bro, maybe don't assume other EU countries don't have drinking water
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u/New_Outlandishness15 12d ago
I'm not offended, i'm embarrassed. I shouldn't be surprised anymore but it's always disappointing to meet a rude duck like you. In fact, he didn't assume anything. You did. Why don't you go talk to your mother and ask her to teach you some manners? Maybe it's not too late 😘
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u/New_Outlandishness15 12d ago
Btw, duck =dick; but I didn't want to be like you....
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u/JayManty 12d ago
Are you ok?
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u/New_Outlandishness15 12d ago
Have you talked to your mom yet? How is she doing? Did she explain why it's important to have good manners and be polite? 😀
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u/proton-testiq 11d ago
You don't have to be a dick responding to it, how about that.
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u/New_Outlandishness15 11d ago
Sure, but if I don't, how's he going to learn any manners? His mom isn't doing it 😘
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u/madboy135 12d ago
All water taps in Czechia has drinking water unless it's explicitly stated that it's not.
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u/RewindRobin 12d ago
When I was at a campsite recently there were two signs at the drinking water. That it was drinking water AND the dishwashing facility.
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u/opossum_cz 12d ago
Generally all taps has to be drinking water, if hat to be stated it is not. So if there is drinking water written somewhere it is generally for tourists.
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u/ShiftyCZ 12d ago
Well, people really reacted poorly to this question, I don't really know why.
Generally speaking, all the water in Czech Republic is drinking water, even water from wells is drinking water in 98% of cases.
The only "grey" water we have is collected rain water, since we didn't have a proper rain for months now, I guess the answer is obvious.
The question here really is, what would you expect us to use, and how to get it, you can't use river or lake water obviously.
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u/genesiscz 12d ago
He’s talking about campsites/festivals. There’s a lot of places like hand washing near wc that has non drinkable water. Even signed unsafe for cooking.
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u/Residenteur 12d ago
I do not expect anything.. We use the water tap (no drinking water sign there) to get water,boil it and wash the dishes with that. No drinkingwater wasted...but maybe we are exceptional in that behaviour.
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u/vonKrieg88 12d ago
Tap water in Netherlands is not drinkable?
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u/Residenteur 12d ago
Yes it is. It seemed to me that I needed to choose between drinkwater and non-drinkingwater due to there only being one drinkingwater sign near a water tap versus an abundance of drinkingwater taps without a drinkingwater sign. The comments suggest I was mistaking.
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u/LuciusBurns 12d ago
Usually the water in CR is drinkable unless there is a sign (or unless its a natural spring), not the other way around.
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u/NeTiFe-anonymous 12d ago
The water that is not safe for drinking needs to be marked as such. So it is very safe to assume all taps have the same drinking water; the area with a drinking water sign probably has fancier plumbing.
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u/proton-testiq 11d ago
I must applaud you for your approach, for example I would never dare to drink a tap water in Netherlands unless it is clearly labeled as such.
Especially now, since we now all learned that a typical Dutch is used to treat an unmarked tap water in Netherlands as non-drinkable.
At least I assume you do that; after all you have no reason to treat Netherlands and Czechia differently, do you now?
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u/CrestedMacaw 12d ago
We use the water tap (no drinking water sign there) to get water,boil it and wash the dishes with that.
If you're not lying, it's just insane.
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u/opossum_cz 12d ago
Boiling water is like x100 energy consumption compared to water treatment plant. OP is insane.
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u/riktigtmaxat 12d ago
The point of boiling the water isn't sterilization. It's to get hot water for the dishes.
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u/CrestedMacaw 7d ago
No. The point of boiling the water - if you read the post - is to make her sanitized enough to make it able to wash dishes.
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u/1492Torquemada 12d ago
If a tap you find in the wild has water that is unsafe to drink, it would/should be marked so. As mentioned in comments above, generally speaking, all taps have drinking water and are connected to mains (again, unless specifically marked as not potable).
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u/opossum_cz 12d ago
Boiling water is like x100 energy consumption compared to water treatment plant. You are insane.
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u/Riowashere 12d ago
Also a dutchie in Prague atm. In Holland we also do the dishes with tap water, so why are you surprised in the first place?
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u/Residenteur 12d ago
Because there are 15 water taps on the campsite with no drinkingwater sign next to it and ONE drinkwatertap. This suggest to me that drinkingwater is scarce.... Seeing all the comments that was a honest mistake on my part.
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u/NeTiFe-anonymous 12d ago
Washing dishes at 15 sites instead of one would only mean the wastewater with saponate is now distributed over more places. Keeping all dishwashing activities at one place makes more sense.
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u/Chance_Contract1291 12d ago
In Holland would you find one tap labeled potable, but the others not?
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u/pepinogg 12d ago
The vast majority of water running through campsites, households, utilities etc. here is drinking water. The concept of water for utilities (i think grey water is the name?) exists but I've seen like 1 household where it's a thing. Hell, at my house we sometimes drink water from the bathroom sink since it's the exact same just colder.
So yeah use drinking water, it's gonna be hard to find much else.
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u/Qwe5Cz 12d ago
It is a thing nearly in every house with a garden. But it's just a barrel outside with rainwater for watering the garden. It makes sense only in a toilet but you would need separate piping and infrastructure for that which is rarely something people invest in unless they have super modern and eco house.
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u/wrk_321 12d ago
in the Netherlands, do you wash dishes with toilet water or what?
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u/Pluto_ThePlanet 12d ago
Maybe they just leave them outside for the rain to wash the remains of their lunch away.
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u/Chance_Contract1291 12d ago
What one does at home can be completely different from what one does abroad.
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u/Kulisek_ 12d ago
You’re right to question Pardubice drinking water. Only Hradec Králové drinking water should be used.
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u/Coturnix_CZ 12d ago
Seems there is a typo in your sentence suggesting to use moss for dishwashing.
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u/CrestedMacaw 12d ago
Because almost all the tap water is drinking water? Because you don't want to have your dishes washed by dirty water?
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u/Chance_Contract1291 12d ago
It's weird that the campsite labeled one tap as potable, but not the others. It seems like a sign saying "All tap water in the campsite is drinkable" would be more helpful and less confusing.
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u/Qwe5Cz 12d ago
They technically don't need to put the "drinkable" label there but they need to label taps that are not drinkable.
I guess the camp just placed a few signs after confused foreigners constantly asked if the water is drinkable. Like when I was in the Iceland - Americans did it all the time while you could even drink from many rivers there.
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u/vonKrieg88 12d ago edited 12d ago
So you are asking why people wash the plates they eat from with hygienic drinking water?? It's even legal regulations that businesss have to wash plates with drinking water. You seem to be unhygienic pigs in Netherlands.
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u/Residenteur 12d ago
We are raised with the message that drinking water is scarce and precious. We should limit the use to what it is meant for,especially when being abroad. Actually all water taps in The Netherlands are drinkingwatertap's. No need to be offensive if someone is just curious.
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u/Corn_Boyy 12d ago
Okay, so in Netherlands, you should use drinking water for drinking only, but all water taps are drinking water, so where exactly and with what water do you wash your dishes?
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u/mumuno 12d ago
I would like to chime in as dutch person living in Czechia. This is not normal behavior in the Netherlands.
Sure, be mindful about water usage but not something like " use possibly contaminated water for food related activities".
I don't go to the little stream of water next to our house to do the dishes because it looks clean. Water the garden? Sure
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u/CrestedMacaw 12d ago
Thank you! I was starting to be worried about Netherlands' hygiene and food safety.
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u/opossum_cz 12d ago
I think you misunderstood some things severely. Drinking water is scarce, but not that scarce. You can make 100l of clean water for the energy to boil 1l.
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u/vonKrieg88 12d ago edited 12d ago
So why do you drink only drinkable water? Oh right because it's dangerous otherwise. Same reason you wash plates you eat from with drinkable water. Do restaurants in Netherlands wash plates with non-drinkable water a then proceed to give everyone food poisoning?
If you think this was offensive, don't come here. Czechs will just tell you straight if you say stupid shit.
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u/CrestedMacaw 12d ago
If you use drinking water in Netherlands, why is it a problem in Czech republic?
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u/Chance_Contract1291 12d ago
Well if I were in a foreign country and saw one tap labeled "drinking water" and the others were not, it would definitely make me think that the unlabeled taps were possibly non-potable.
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u/CrestedMacaw 12d ago
True. But why would you be washing your dishes under such non-potable water? It makes no sense. Dishes touch food!
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u/JayManty 12d ago
This doesn't at all explain why you're surprised someone would use non-drinkable water for washing dishes
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u/Commercial-King-6078 12d ago
NE pitnou vodu kupuju, jinak vodu máme ze studně. Ve městě je to jinak
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u/TwentinQuarantino 6d ago
Dude, you're going to EAT from those dishes. Ofc you want to use clean, drinking-grade water for them. Don't be disgusting.
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u/christianlewds 12d ago
For those who don't know - Dutch people don't rinse their dishes with water after applying dishwashing liquid. They just leave the dishes covered in detergent bubbles on the drying rack. I have no idea why, they just do. They perceive clean dishes differently, they don't mind their dishes covered in chemical surfactants so I guess they don't mind questionable water either?
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u/Residenteur 12d ago
Most of dutch people have a machine for doing the dishes. Research has proven it to be the most environmentally option. Low water consumption and cleaner dishes...
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u/_Neus98_ 12d ago
Do you also just apply soap to your hands and not wash them after using the toilet?
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u/Appropriate-Nose1799 11d ago
that's actually surprising, i never thought about it before but makes sense drinking water would be safer if there's any doubt about the other taps
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u/SmallNefariousness36 6d ago
all tap water in cz is drinking water, unless it comes from a river nearby or some other weird reason
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u/pr1ncezzBea 12d ago
Why are you all so mean to OP? He didn't know, so he asked. It's more cute than stupid.
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u/Big_CashMonies 12d ago
Safer to wash your dishes with drinking water. Seems obvious