Non-potable Water Emoji

A water faucet with a droplet, overlaid with the red prohibition circle. 🚱 means do not drink this water. Under ISO 7010 P005, the physical sign is called "Not Drinking Water," a standard posted at US OSHA-regulated workplaces since 1971 and in EU workplaces since EN ISO 7010 was adopted into EU law in 2003. Real-world installations include construction sites, agricultural irrigation taps, industrial facilities, ship galleys, airplane lavatories, and any public outdoor tap where the water hasn't been treated for human consumption.

The emoji has a narrow primary use (literal water-safety warning) and a wider metaphorical use. Online, "🚱" shows up on travel posts about countries where tap water isn't safe, in memes about bad drinks or suspicious-looking beverages ("is this 🚱?"), and in political commentary around water infrastructure: 2.2 billion people globally still lack safely managed drinking water as of 2024, and the US Flint water crisis ran from 2014 until 2025 when all lead service lines were finally replaced.

Added in Unicode 6.0 (October 2010) at codepoint U+1F6B1. Pulled from Japanese carrier emoji sets.

Three main patterns.

Travel content: "don't drink the tap water 🚱" in posts and reels about Mexico, India, Egypt, and dozens of other countries. Often paired with bottled-water recommendations and local stomach-safety tips.

Water infrastructure discourse: US environmental-justice accounts use 🚱 when posting about Flint, Jackson (MS), Newark, and other cities with lead pipe or water-contamination crises. The EPA estimates 9 million lead service lines exist nationally, all of which the October 2024 federal rule requires replaced within 10 years.

Figurative warnings about suspicious drinks: "is this from the club soda machine 🚱" or "my homemade cocktail 🚱" as dark-humor framings of questionable beverages. This is a growing use, more common in younger cohorts, especially in posts about festival drinks or sketchy food-court refill stations.

Secondary: global water-access advocacy. WaterAid, Charity: Water, and UNICEF campaigns use 🚱 alongside 🚰 (potable water) to contrast access vs absence. The UN SDG 6 target of universal drinking-water coverage by 2030 looks unlikely without a 6x acceleration.

Non-potable water signs became standard in US workplaces after OSHA's 1971 sanitation standard 29 CFR 1910.141(b)(2)(1) required that any outlet of non-potable water be "posted or marked in a manner that will clearly indicate that the water is unsafe." Around the same time, European countries standardized their own workplace and public-space water-safety signage.

ISO unified the design in ISO 7010 P005, "Not Drinking Water", published in October 2003. The Euro-version (EN ISO 7010) was adopted into EU law in 2003 and revised in 2012. The glass-with-water-and-slash pictogram appears on every EU workplace tap that doesn't deliver drinking water.

Japan standardized a parallel design on public water sources in the late 1990s, driven by the need to distinguish irrigation taps from drinking fountains in parks and train stations. Japanese carriers (DoCoMo, KDDI, SoftBank) included non-potable icons in their emoji sets before 2010.

Unicode adopted 🚱 in version 6.0 on October 11, 2010, at codepoint U+1F6B1. Apple and Google render a faucet silhouette; the ISO standard officially uses a drinking glass. The emoji is a slight deviation from the ISO reference, but both are recognized.

1. 1971US OSHA sanitation standard 29 CFR 1910.141(b)(2)(1) requires non-potable water outlets to be clearly marked.
2. 1984ISO 3864 safety-sign standard first published, establishing prohibition-circle geometry.
3. 1999Japan standardizes non-potable signage on park and station taps.
4. 2003ISO 7010 is published in October. Sign P005 'Not Drinking Water' defined.
5. 2010Unicode 6.0 adds 🚱 on October 11 at codepoint U+1F6B1. Pulled from Japanese carrier sets.
6. 2012EN ISO 7010 revised and expanded; becomes standard across EU workplaces.
7. 2014Flint, Michigan water crisis begins when the city switches its water source to the Flint River without corrosion inhibitors.
8. 2024[Biden administration issues final rule](https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/biden-harris-administration-issues-final-rule-requiring-replacement-lead-pipes-14) requiring all US water systems to replace lead service lines within 10 years. [$15 billion in funding](https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-announces-more-61-million-michigan-lead-pipe-replacement-advance-safe-drinking) allocated via Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
9. 2025[Flint declares its water safe after replacing nearly 11,000 lead pipes](https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/03/us/flint-michigan-clean-water-crisis), formally ending the 2014-2025 crisis.

• •As of 2024, 2.2 billion people globally still lack safely managed drinking water, meaning water at home, available when needed, free from contamination.
• •Achieving universal drinking-water coverage by 2030 (UN SDG 6.1 target) would require a 6-fold increase in current global rates of progress.
• •The EPA estimates 9 million lead service lines still exist in the US, all of which must be replaced within 10 years under the October 2024 federal rule.
• •Flint, Michigan officially declared its water safe in August 2025, ending an 11-year crisis that started in 2014. Nearly 11,000 lead pipes were replaced and over 28,000 properties restored.
• •Airplane lavatory taps are non-potable by default in most airlines. The water is not tested to drinking standards, and 🚱 is posted on many carriers' bathroom signs.
• •OSHA's 1971 sanitation standard made it US law to mark non-potable outlets. The rule hasn't fundamentally changed in 55 years.
• •In 2024, only 56% of domestic wastewater generated globally was safely treated, largely unchanged from 2020. Untreated wastewater is a primary contributor to non-potable surface water worldwide.

• •Flint water crisis (2014-2025): the US environmental-justice defining story of the 2010s-2020s. 🚱 appears constantly in Flint-adjacent commentary, which officially ended in August 2025 when the city declared its water safe after replacing nearly 11,000 lead pipes.
• •Biden lead pipe rule (October 2024): EPA's final rule mandating US water systems replace all 9 million lead service lines within 10 years. Major infrastructure policy moment where 🚱 became political shorthand.
• •World Water Day (March 22 annually): UN and NGO campaigns frequently pair 🚱 with 🚰 and 💧 to communicate the global water-access gap.
• •'Don't drink the water' travel trope: shows up in every country-specific travel guide and every Mexico-themed TikTok about tourists getting sick. 🚱 is the standard emoji for the warning.

• •🚱 is codepoint U+1F6B1. Unicode name: NON-POTABLE WATER.
• •Common shortcodes: :non-potable_water::non-potable_water:, :no_drinking_water::no_drinking_water: on platforms.
• •Pairs explicitly with 🚰 (U+1F6B0, POTABLE WATER) as the Yin-Yang of water-safety signage.

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