Is our tap water safe?

The short answer

It depends where you live, and that's the problem. The Department of Water and Sanitation's own reports show a system that has declined sharply over the last decade. Many large metros still deliver good-quality water, but in much of the country, what comes out of the tap can no longer be taken for granted.

What the government's own reports found

The Department of Water and Sanitation audits the country's water services in three reports: Blue Drop for drinking water, Green Drop for wastewater, and No Drop for water losses. The latest full reports found:

• Drinking water (Blue Drop, 2023): of 958 water supply systems, 46% had poor or bad microbiological compliance, compared with 5% in 2014. Gauteng and the Western Cape performed best, but even there, about one system in five fell short.
• Sewage treatment (Green Drop, 2022): 334 of 850 municipal wastewater treatment works, or 39%, were in a critical state. When these works fail, partly treated or raw sewage ends up in the rivers that downstream towns draw their water from.
• Water losses (No Drop, 2023): 47% of municipal water is non-revenue water, lost to leaks, burst pipes, faulty meters and illegal connections, up from 37% in 2014. Leaking, low-pressure pipes are also a route for contamination to get in.

The consequences are real. In 2023, a cholera outbreak in Hammanskraal, north of Pretoria, killed more than 20 people within weeks, in an area with long-standing water and sewage problems.

What's in our rivers and groundwater

• Sewage: the South African Human Rights Commission found the Vaal River, which supplies water to an estimated 19 million people, "polluted beyond acceptable standards" by untreated sewage from failing treatment works.
• PFAS ("forever chemicals"): researchers have measured PFAS in Western Cape rivers, in Gauteng's Hartbeespoort and Roodeplaat dams, and in tap water. A 2025 study found that average levels of four PFAS in the South African tap water it tested were above US EPA limits.
• Acid mine drainage: when old gold mines in the Witwatersrand basins flood, the water turns acidic and dissolves metals from the rock. Government measurements of this water have found sulphate, iron, manganese and uranium far above discharge standards, and the state has had to build treatment plants to stop it flowing into rivers.
• Uranium and radioactive elements: gold ore on the Witwatersrand contains uranium, and decades of mining have carried it into streams such as the Wonderfonteinspruit on the West Rand. Uranium also occurs naturally in groundwater in parts of the Northern Cape.

Why these contaminants matter

Most of these don't make you sick from a single glass. They build up, or do their damage, over years of exposure, which is why what's in your everyday water matters more than what's in an occasional one.

What you can do about it

Boiling kills bacteria, but it doesn't remove metals, PFAS or radioactive elements; it concentrates them slightly as the water evaporates. Removing those takes proper treatment. Reverse osmosis is one of the most effective: US EPA regulations name it among the best available technologies for uranium, radium and other radioactivity, and EPA research found reverse osmosis systems can greatly reduce PFAS.

That's why remineralised water exists. Instead of trusting a source, a river or a pipe network, it takes water back to almost zero, removing heavy metals, PFAS, uranium and other radioactive elements, nitrates, pesticides and bacteria. Then it puts back natural minerals in measured amounts, the way water gathers them from rock. You know what's been taken out, you know what's been put back, and it's the same in every bottle. Here's how remineralised water works.

Peak Hydration is remineralised water, made in South Africa. Find it near you.

Questions, answered

Published 8 October 2026 by Peak Hydration