Eight Bottled Water Brands Unsafe for Consumption

KARACHI: Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources (PCRWR) has discovered filtered water of eight brands perilous; on the other hand, it passed 63 different brands.

The administration lab found that eight brands of filtered water are offering perilous water for human utilization due to chemical and microbiological pollution.

As indicated by the report for the quarter January-March, 2015, the PCRWR gathered 71 specimens of mineral/filtered water brands from Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Tando Jam, Lahore, Quetta, Sialkot and Karachi. Examination of diagnostic discoveries with permissible limits of Pakistan Standard Quality Control Authority (PSQCA) uncovered that eight brands, including Al-Haider, Noble, Drop Ice, Al-Sana, Days Pure, Effort, Aqua Safe and Butt were discovered to be dangerous because of compound or microbiological tainting.

Out of those eight hazardous brands, three brands (Al-Sana, Aqua Safe & Days Pure) have relatively abnormal state of Arsenic going from 11-35 PPB compared to PSQCA water quality standard for Arsenic (10 PPB).The excessive level of Arsenic can bring about different sorts of skin diseases, diabetes, kidney infections, hypertension, heart diseases, birth defects, dark foot diseases and numerous sorts of cancers.

Though, three brands, including Drop Ice, Effort & Butt, were discovered to be hazardous because of microbiological contamination which may cause cholera, dysentery, diarrhea, hepatitis and typhoid.

The remaining brands: Noble, Days Pure and Aqua Safe were discovered perilous because of the vicinity of larger amounts of sodium and Al-Haider brand had a hazardously abnormal state of potassium.

The PCRWR requested the national quality control powers to start taking actions against the organizations, which are supplying tainted filtered water.

With the rising trend of drinking bottled water, at least 37 new brands of bottled water have emerged in the market this year, with 42 of the previous ones having completely disappeared from last year and only 34 of them being present consistently.

The report mentioned the reasons for contamination, the most obvious being water pipelines situated very near to open drains and sewage lines. Other contaminants include industrial wastes and agricultural inputs.

The PCRWR had been monitoring the brands and had been making the results public on a quarterly basis. Just before these current results, the council had examined 76 brands for the quarter, October-December 2014, and found 10 brands unsafe for human consumption. These had included the Dewan Water Express, Aqua National, Natur Aqua, Butt Water, Best Natural, Noble, AFRA, NASH, Aftab Qureshi and Ideal Life.