Man Fills Water Jug at Walmart and Then Noticed Something Strange About Where It's Coming From

Water filter stations are a relief to all those looking for filtered water outside their homes. The water from these outlets is widely trusted by millions of Americans as a safe source of drinking water. But the faith of a TikTok user who goes by @musicislife497 was shaken when he discovered the original source of water in a Walmart refill station. The man was perplexed when he peeked behind the water station and his startling reaction went viral on the internet, amassing over 332,000 views. 

At the Primo self-service refill station, the man was refilling a jug of water for his home when a sudden question popped up in his head. “I’m filling this up at Walmart, and I wonder, like, where is this water actually coming from?” he said in the clip. The intrusive thought sparked his curiosity urging him to explore behind the station only to find that the water pipeline was connected to a mere faucet. The content creator was taken aback by the fact that the refill station supplied the “same water” he could have had at his home.

He exclaimed, “Boy, that’s coming out of the faucet. That is faucet water. I’m filling this up with faucet water.” The influencer, who has more than 10,000 followers, explained that the retail store was simply providing filtered tap water in the refill stations– a fact pretty disappointing for him. By that point, the man had filled up more than three jugs of water for himself. His astonishment failed to resonate with netizens as several of them mocked the influencer for his notion about water refill stations at Walmart. 

One person (@doggolover517) wittily quipped, “Bruh, did you think they had a fresh mountain spring installed on the roof or something?” while another (@johnnysector) wrote, “Toilet water for sure.” Someone else (@twistedblondie88) echoed the first comment, and stated, “Bro, it’s Walmart. Like, duh, it’s just sink water.” However, another comment by a TikTok user (@morray611) explained the series of filters the tap water goes through in the refill station. “It’s run through a reverse osmosis filter probably 3 of them and then through a carbon filter,” their note read. 

Quite accurately, the Primo self-service refill stations do supply filtered tap water after having undergone a rigorous filtration process. The water from the faucet passes through an activated carbon filter, a micron filter, a reverse osmosis process, a post-carbon filter, and finally interacts with ultraviolet light before dispersing out into the bottle, according to Primo's official website. In 2021, an interesting trend continued amidst the pandemic as sales of bottled water surged up the charts, per a report by the International Bottled Water Association. It stated, “Per-capita consumption of bottled water reached another all-time high." This was because most of the world was in quarantine and wanted to stock up on the most important drink in the world associated with good health and a quality lifestyle– water. 

However, the LA Times reported that most of the U.S. bottled water is essentially filtered tap water as manufacturers pass it through a combination of filtration processes to make it safe for consumption. On the contrary, over 30 million Americans were recorded to live in areas where water sources are deemed unsafe with limited access to clean drinking water in 2019, per TIME Magazine. 

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