When it comes to your toilet, something that you might be wondering is how clean that water actually is. Sure, the water in the tank looks very clean and even the stuff in the bowl doesn’t look too bad either. However, with that being said, how clean is toilet water actually? And is it clean enough to drink?
Let’s find out just that.
Is Toilet Water Clean After Flushing?
Alright, so what we want to say right off the bat is that the word clean here is quite subjective. What we want to do is to differentiate between water being simply clean and water being clean and safe enough to actually drink. First off, what we also need to say is that how clean your toilet water is doesn’t just depend on your toilet, but on your actual water filtration system itself. The reason for this is of course because your toilet water is technically the exact same water that comes out of your sink, and your bathtub faucet.
The water that comes out of your kitchen sink that you then put in a glass and drink is no different than the water that comes through the pipes and goes into your toilet tank. Therefore, after you flush your toilet, the water in your toilet tank is perfectly clean.
Now, the water itself that comes into your toilet tank is of course perfectly clean, but with that being said, whether or not the water stays clean and clear really depends on how clean the toilet tank is. If you take good care of your toilet and the tank is clean, then the water should also stay clean.
However, the case is of course a bit different if we are talking about the water that is in your actual toilet bowl. If your take really good care of your toilet and you clean it on a daily basis, then the water that comes into the bowl after flushing may very well be perfectly clean. With that being said, toilets are of course places where you deposit your own waste.
Therefore, toilets naturally aren’t the most hygienic places. If your toilet is dirty and has waste remenants in it, then those waste remenants will contaminate the water in the bowl. In other words, it’s pretty hard to imagine that water that sits in a bowl that is often filled with poop and waste, can possibly be 100% clean.
Sure, if you take good care of your toilet, then the water in the bowl might not stink. But whether or not it is clean and safe enough to drink is totally questionable. Yes, the dirty water gets replaced with clear and clean water once you flush, but your toilet itself may still harbor contaminants that will then get into the water.
How to Keep Toilet Water Clean
Although under no circumstances do we recommend drinking your toilet water, there are a number of things that you can do to help keep it as clean as possible:
- The best thing that you can do in order to keep the water in your toilet bowl clean is to clean your toilet on a regular basis. Personally, we recommend doing spot cleaning, which means that you clean your toilet every time that you see some dirt. With that being said, cleaning your toilet every two or three days should be more than enough.
- To help keep your toilet water clean while also reducing the amount of work that you have to do, you can always try using some toilet tabs that you insert either directly into the bowl or into the tank. These are tabs that contain special chemicals and substances that help to keep your toilet water clean.
- Another thing that you can do on a regular basis to help keep your toilet water clean is to pour a cup or two of vinegar into the toilet tank. Let the vinegar sit in the toilet tank for about an hour and then flush the toilet. Let that same vinegar water sit in the toilet bowl for about an hour and then flushed that down.
- If you really want to take things an extra step, you can always get a good whole home water filtration system that will remove as many bacteria and contaminants from the water as possible before it ever gets to your toilet.
Can You Drink Toilet Water?
OK, so you see your dog Fido drinking out of the toilet constantly and they seem to be fine. So does this mean that you can drink right out of the toilet too? The unfortunate reality here is that no, you probably shouldn’t be drinking out of the toilet, and it’s thanks to the cholera bacteria left behind by your waste.
Once again in spite of the fact that the water that is flushed into the toilet bowl is technically clean, your toilet bowl itself still harbors bacteria and those bacteria quickly contaminate the fresh water. Make no mistake about it because your dog has a much stronger constitution than you and can handle fairly dirty water, but you can’t. If you drink toilet water, chances are that you are going to get sick.
The biggest risk here is of course the E. Coli bacteria that can cause extremely severe stomach cramps, skin infections, diarrhea, and in some cases may even be fatal. The bottom line here is that you should not be drinking toilet water. On a side note, sure the water in the top of the tank is going to be cleaner than the stuff down in the bowl, but with that being said, we still wouldn’t risk drinking that either.
Summary
The bottom line here is that while toilet water is clean enough, we would not say that it is so clean that you can drink it.