ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Council of Research on Water Resources (PCRWR) on Thursday declared 11 brands of mineral water unsafe for drinking due to chemical contamination. These brands include Premier Fresh, Well Care, National, Siiz Cool, Blue Plus, New ARBO, Cottage Foods Drink Water, Reliable, Pacific Pure, OAS Water and Aqua National.
Out of those unsafe brands, 40 brands i.e. Well Care, Siiz Cool, Pacific Pure and Aqua National have comparatively high levels of Arsenic ranging from 15-60 ppb than Pakistan Standards & Quality Control Authority (PSQCA) water quality standard for arsenic (10 ppb). The excessive level of arsenic can cause various types of skin diseases, diabetes, kidney diseases, hypertension, heart diseases birth defects, black foot diseases and multiple types of cancers etc.
The 8 brands including Premier Fresh, Well Care, National, Blue Plus, New ARBO, Reliable, Pacific Pure and OAS Water, were found unsafe due to the presence of higher levels of Sodium ranging from 60-115 ppb than PSQCA water quality standard for sodium (50 ppb) and one brand (Cottage Foods Drink Water) was found unsafe due to the presence of higher level of Potassium.
The poor quality of drinking water has forced a large cross-section of citizens to buy bottled water. As a consequence of this expanding market a mushroom growth of bottled water industry in the country is witnessed during the last few years. However, many of the mineral/Bottled water companies were found selling contaminated water.
To monitor and improve the quality of bottled water, the government of Pakistan through Ministry of Science and Technology designated the task to PCRWR for quarterly monitoring of bottled/mineral water brands and publicize the results.
According to the monitoring report for the quarter from July to September, 2016, 109 samples of Mineral/Bottled water brands have been collected from Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Gilgit, Muzaffarabad, Faisalabad, Sialkot, Sargodha, Multan, Lahore, Bahawalpur, Karachi, Tando Jam and Peshawar. Comparison of analytical findings with permissible limits of Pakistan Standards and Quality Control Authority (PSQCA) revealed that 11 brands were unsafe to drink.