Drinking Water Safety

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Why Teknor Apex recommends not drinking from a garden hose

Garden hose is intended to be used to convey cold water outside a building. The most common uses for garden hose are watering lawns and gardens and cleaning applications. Due to the environment that a garden hose is used in, it is prudent practice for consumers to NOT drink from a garden hose.

Among the factors that drive this recommendation are:

The warm, moist interior of a partially emptied garden hose can promote the growth of molds and bacteria that could cause serious illness in humans.

A garden hose can be routinely used to apply lawn and garden chemicals (e.g.: pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers, etc) by a hose applicator. A garden hose could also be in very close proximity to lawn chemical applications by use of other application techniques. Therefore drinking from a garden hose has high risk of potential exposure to lawn and garden chemicals and is not endorsed.

A garden hose can be subject to uncontrolled exposures to animal (both domestic and wild) wastes. Animal waste are known sources of pathogens, microorganisms and parasites such as; Cryptosporidium, Giardia lamblia, Salmonella, E. coli and toxoplasmosis. All of which can cause serious illnesses in humans.

A garden hose can be exposed to various disease carrying insect populations (e.g.: Lyme disease carrying deer ticks) which should be minimized. Spiders and other insects can crawl into an open hose end.