Sushil Dhital

Kathmandu

Water, water everywhere, not a drop to drink” perhaps appropriately describes the attitude of many urban consumers who are increasingly looking toward bottled water to meet their daily requirements.

Municipal water supplies are unsafe and inadequate to meet an ever-expanding population. Safe and accessible drinking water has become a major challenge. In this scenario, bottled water is the last resort for safe drinking water. Consumers may have various reasons for purchasing bottled drinking water — taste, convenience, fashion, etc, but for many, safety and potential health benefits are important considerations.

Bottled water has emerged as a huge, most profitable and fastest growing segment of the entire beverage industry in Nepal. To safeguard the consumer health and fraudulent practices, the government has formulated minimum mandatory standards for bottled water — “Processed Drinking Water” in accordance to food act 2023. For the provision of Nepal Standard marking, Nepal Bureau of Standard and Metrology has also formulated Nepal Standard for the same.

A range of chemical, pesticides and microbial hazards may contaminate bottled water. Chemical hazards include heavy metals such as lead, mercury, arsenic, etc. Pesticide hazards include presence of pesticide residues such as DDT, BHC, Aldrin, etc. Microbial hazards due to the presence of pathogenic bacteria (coliforms, salmonella, cholera, shigella, bacillus), yeast and moulds makes water completely unsafe to drink.

Major threats

Chemical hazards: Long-term exposure to arsenic via water causes cancer of the skin, lungs, urinary bladder and kidney. Too much lead and mercury in the body can cause serious damage to the brain, kidneys, nervous system and red blood cells. Chronic exposures to heavy metal are mutagenic (that effect the hereditary character of human cell) and carcinogenic.

Pesticide hazards: Organophosphates and the carbonates present in pesticides affect and damage nervous system and can cause cancer. Some of the pesticides contain chlorides that cause reproductive and endocrinal damage.

Microbial hazards: Bacterial contamination causes diseases such as typhoid, cholera, paratyphoid fever and bacillary dysentery. Viral contaminations cause infectious disease such as hepatitis and poliomyelitis. Protozoal infections cause amoebic dysentery. Bottled water should be free from all types of these pathogens and should have non-pathogenic bacterial (mesophilic bacteria) count less than 25 per ml.

One thing must be understood that bottled water is not a distilled or sterile water to be used for laboratory and medical purpose. It is purified and processed water obtained from the approved water sources — underground, river or springs.

Safety measures

Production process encompasses various steps that gradually purify the water physically, chemically and microbiologically to make it fit for drinking. Among them Reverse Osmosis (RO) and Ozonation are very important. In RO process, water is passed through very thin membrane, which blocks the dissolved mineral and micro-organism including coliforms and bacillus. The RO water is again treated with Ozone (type of oxygen molecule: O3), this is called Ozonation.

Hygienic facilities, inadequate processing and post processing steps like bottling, capping, sealing and distribution of finished goods, etc, play major role. On top of that, laboratory testing methodology, efficiency and adequacy of sampling and testing personnel are also very important.