6 brands of bottled water found unsafe

Islamabad : According to the monitoring report of Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources (PCRWR) on quality of bottled water for the last quarter of 2018 (October to December, 2018), six brands of mineral or bottled water were found unsafe for public consumption.

According to the detailed report, drinking water quality in Pakistan is deteriorating continually due to biological contamination from human waste, chemical pollutants from industries and agricultural inputs. Piped water also gets contaminated because pipes are laid very close to sewerage lines or open drains and cause many serious water borne diseases.

The monitoring report says that it was found that 45 per cent of infant deaths have been attributed to diarrhea and about 60 per cent to overall infectious waterborne diseases in Pakistan. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) 25-30 per cent of the diseases are gastro-intestinal in nature.

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.

For monitoring of bottled water from October to December, 2018, 78 samples of mineral and bottled water brands were collected from Islamabad, Karachi, Multan, Lahore, Bahawalpur, Tandojam and Quetta. Comparison of analytical findings with permissible limits of Pakistan Standards and Quality Control Authority (PSQCA) revealed that six brands including Karakorum Flow, Crystal Maya, ALPHA, Aqua Ayolam, Paradise and Hibba were found to be unsafe due to chemical and microbiological contaminations.

Out of those unsafe brands, two brands (KARAKORUM Flow and Aqua Ayolam) were found to be unsafe due to microbiological contamination which may cause Cholera, Diarrhea, Dysentery, Hepatitis, Typhoid etc. Whereas three brands including Crystal Maya, ALPHA and PARADISE were declared unsafe due to the presence of higher level of Sodium ranging from 78-82 ppm and one brand named Hibba was found unsafe due to the presence of low level of pH. The PSQCA bottled water quality standard for sodium is 50 ppm and pH is 6.5-8.5.