# New water regulations Mexico City only??



## AllBbear (Apr 17, 2013)

According to a law introduced by Mexico city this year, restaurants will have to install filters in order to serve potable water to consumers, relegating usage of bottled water. Around 65,000 restaurants will have to install filters by mid-year in order to evade fines on non-compliance. As the country looks to fight water borne diseases and work on its safe drinking water problem, this move will decrease bottled water consumption in restaurants and could potentially hurt sales of big corporate companies which sell bottled water


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## Longford (May 25, 2012)

I believe this is a Mexico City-only regulation. For many years now a lot of the restaurants in the city have said they "filter" the drinking water. Well, they say they do ... and, in most instances ... I don't believe them (as far as doing so all of the time). It's one thing to install filtration systems and it's yet another to maintain the systems once they're installed. My experience has been that most restaurants in the city will not routinely/automatically serve guests a glass of water ... except on request ... unlike in the USA and Canada where it seems water is the first thing a guest is greeted with along with a menu. The government regulation is, as I understand it, meant to reduce plastsic bottle waste in an environment where people buy water to drink because they don't trust the quality coming from the tap.


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## TundraGreen (Jul 15, 2010)

Longford said:


> I believe this is a Mexico City-only regulation. For many years now a lot of the restaurants in the city have said they "filter" the drinking water. Well, they say they do ... and, in most instances ... I don't believe them (as far as doing so all of the time). It's one thing to install filtration systems and it's yet another to maintain the systems once they're installed. My experience has been that most restaurants in the city will not routinely/automatically serve guests a glass of water ... except on request ... unlike in the USA and Canada where it seems water is the first thing a guest is greeted with along with a menu. The government regulation is, as I understand it, meant to reduce plastsic bottle waste in an environment where people buy water to drink because they don't trust the quality coming from the tap.


I generally request a glass of water in restaurants. I specify that I want water from a garafon, not an individual plastic bottle. I almost always get it. Once in awhile they will tell me that they only have water in individual serving bottles.


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## Longford (May 25, 2012)

TundraGreen said:


> I generally request a glass of water in restaurants. I specify that I want water from a garafon, not an individual plastic bottle. I almost always get it. Once in awhile they will tell me that they only have water in individual serving bottles.


How do you know the water has come from a garafon, unless you see it drawn from one? And even if you see water coming from one ... unless you see the seal broken on the bottle ... there's always the chance it's just been filled-up from a hose. I've seen that done at more than one restaurant in the D.F. My beverage of choice at lunch or dinner is a cold beer .... so, the drinking water-with-meal isn't really an issue for me. I don't drink water with breakfast. I do drink water when traveling about Mexico, from a bottle. And when I had my apartment(s) in Mexico City and San Miguel de Allende, I did draw water from the tap, through a filter ... and that was good for cooking. For drinking from that source I'd boil the water beforehand ... and would skim the scum from the top. So, garafon water at home was really the easiest and less time consuming. Restaurants are a different thing, though, and I don't trust most of them 100% of the time.


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## TundraGreen (Jul 15, 2010)

Longford said:


> How do you know the water has come from a garafon, unless you see it drawn from one? And even if you see water coming from one ... unless you see the seal broken on the bottle ... there's always the chance it's just been filled-up from a hose. I've seen that done at more than one restaurant in the D.F. My beverage of choice at lunch or dinner is a cold beer .... so, the drinking water-with-meal isn't really an issue for me. I don't drink water with breakfast. I do drink water when traveling about Mexico, from a bottle. And when I had my apartment(s) in Mexico City and San Miguel de Allende, I did draw water from the tap, through a filter ... and that was good for cooking. For drinking from that source I'd boil the water beforehand ... and would skim the scum from the top. So, garafon water at home was really the easiest and less time consuming. Restaurants are a different thing, though, and I don't trust most of them 100% of the time.


Everybody gets to pick what they want to worry about. I don't eat out all that often but over the years I have had a lot of glasses of water from restaurant garafons. It hasn't caused any problems for me yet.


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