I think Shagnasty nailed this one, even though the idea of poopwater does gross me out (and I ALWAYS close the toilet lid before flushing!).
To continue the sidebar, if no one minds, Liberal how do you propose getting the poop out of the water? Let’s assume it really is an anomaly. Unless there’s a special “Poop-Free” airline advertising itself as such, competition won’t ferret out the fecal. The government can’t be everywhere all the time and people love to cheat, so even if they set a standard of 99.9% (as opposed to the current 90%), that’s still no guarantee there’d be no guano in your particular drink (yes, I know that’s for birds, but it rhymed).
As far as I can tell, the “system” is only as good as the people who’re participating, and no “ism” can change that. Either they pull the poop because it’s the right thing to do, or they find excuses.
When the general public does get its undies in a bunch, then change can happen overnight - remember Alar & 60 Minutes? As soon as I saw that report I predicted Moms across America would have a cow on Monday & they did & that was that.
Since it has already been pointed out that bottled water in the source of the liquid in the cup, wouldn’t the more likely source of the organisms be the humans serving the water? Unwashed hands serving up multiple tiny plastic cups with no handles would lead to what sort of behavior? Haven’t you guys ever seen a waitress accidentally slip her finger into your drink when handling the glass inappropriately? :dubious:
This is not exclusive to airlines - think of how the person serving your take-away coffee puts the lid on - their fingers always seem to touch where the little mouth hole is.
O.K., now that I’m on the same page, I’m having a hard time figuring out why anyone would consider 90% to be such an abysmal record. In many countries, you can’t even drink the water at all. Besides which, it all depends on how high the standards are. If the standards are low, they will be easily met, but the water won’t be safe. If the standards are high, they may not be met completely, but the water might still be safe. It seems meaningless to simply look at a raw percentage like that.
The UK’s pass rate is %99.83, although there are important differences in geography, climate and scale which preclude like-for-like comparison. Most of the infrastructure has been in place for decades (if not centuries) and so I cannot imagine that such a vast budget, nor even a bugdet to scale, would be necessary (although there are plans for a national water pipeline from north to south which would cost billions).
What I said was “I can’t remember the last time I had water that wasn’t bottled name-brand water on a plane.”, and that’s a true statement regarding water.
I don’t know how you make coffee, but typically the coffee is cooked to a decently high temperature that while not guaranteed to kill all pathogens, is going to kill quite a lot of them. Actually, Delta seems to set their coffee temperature to about 180-190F or higher, as it very often burns me slightly. And I guess the point of washing ones hands in the lavatory is to use soap, and/or the antiseptic wet-wipes I carry with me for very long flights to freshen up.
Sure lots and lots of surfaces will be touched and retouched and contaminated by casual contact, both in the serving process and the going to the loo process. You can’t exactly set up a sterile field on an airplane - and even at best all attempts can be nullified by having your seatmate pass you your drink and touching the outside of the cup with his salmonella/plague/hantavirus-laden hands.
That’s kinda how life works - life is dirty, filthy, icky, disgusting, and crawling with disease and microrganisms at every turn whose sole goal in life is to kill you. You do what you can to make it better, but there’s only so much that can be done depending on the cost, technology, and situation.
I think a better OP would be one linking to peer-reviewed research showing that the microrganisms encoutered on airplanes were a viable and unusually dangerous vector for infection and ailment. I know there’s been studies aplenty about the unhealthiness of airplane air; I’m sure there must be something on contamination in the water that’s not designed for an audience of scientific illiterates who cringe and squeal at the thought of “germs, germs everywhere!”
Must you always be “on”? There was nothing in my response here attacking or even poking at you or your OP. Since you’re apparently wanting to rant about a topic that actually had some scientific basis, it seemed appropriate to have some scientific basis to do so. Oh well, my mistake…bored now.
Devout Hindus have the idea that bathing in the ganges River is a good thing. My question has always been…the Ganges is like an open sewer…after these bathing festivals, doesn’t the death rate shoot right up? Must be filthy!
I am confused by the article. The only water I have ever seen on planes is a) the brand-name bottled water they serve you and b) the water you wash your hands with in the lavatory. So, what water are they talking about, specifically?
Anyway, I am not really sure WTF the point of your OP is, Liberal… You think spending less money would make our water cleaner? Just exactly what do you propose to incease the “wildly successful 90% success rate of municipal water systems”?
I know, let’s take government out of the equation. Let’s just all get our own water filters (ya know, like the kind you take camping/backpacking) and just clean our own damn water. The people who can’t afford the filters – (they’re pretty expensive), just let 'em get sick. Survival of the fittest, right?
Just exactly what do you propose to incease the “wildly successful 90% success rate of municipal water systems”?