ISLAMABAD: Around seven brands of bottled water contained hazardous amount of arsenic, a major cause of cancer and kidney diseases, revealed a a study by Pakistan Council for Research in Water resources (PCRWR) on Wednesday.
The safe limit of arsenic in water is 10 parts per billion (ppb), however some brands of bottled water exceed this amount. According to the research: Nadiq Water contained 52ppb arsenic, Nation had 20ppb arsenic, 11ppb of arsenic was found in National, Naimat had 22ppb, Premier contained 16ppb, New Everest had 31ppb arsenic and Pineo contained 13ppb arsenic.
The lack of clean drinking water has become the cause for several diseases,main gastro-intestinal, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). This poor quality of water has forced a large cross-section of citizens to buy bottled water. As a consequence, the bottled-water industry has steadily grown over the last few years.
However, as the research revealed, even these companies are not providing safe water.
As many of such brands were found selling contaminated water, the government has designated the PCRWR as a point agency. In this study, a total of 75 brands were collected from 14 cities including Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore, Bahawalpur, Faisalabad, D.G Khan, D.I.Khan, Sialkot, Sahiwal, Peshawar, Quetta, Karachi, Nawabshah and Hyderabad to investigate the matter.
Seven of the 75 brands, contained excessive amounts of arsenic. The metalloid is a major cause of cancer (lungs, bladder, skin, prostrate, kidney, nose and liver), diabetes, kidney diseases, hypertension, heart diseases, birth defects and black foot diseases. Furthermore, Sodium, Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) and bacterial contamination was also found in some of the brands.
In addition to this, the report revealed that 21 out of 75 bottled brands were unsafe and the number of chemically safe brands was 62. There were 72 microbiologically safe brands.
The PCRWR report also stated that there are 50 brands that are consistently found in the market, whereas 27 have disappeared. The number of new brands is 25.
The quality of drinking water quality provided by the government is already deteriorating continuously due to biological contamination from human waste, chemical pollutants from industries and agricultural inputs. Piped water also gets contaminated as they are laid very close to sewage lines or open drains and cause serious water-borne diseases.
About 45% of infant deaths in the country occur due to diarrhea-- the illness which accounts for about 60% of overall infectious water-borne diseases in Pakistan.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 1st, 2011.
COMMENTS (5)
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arsenic is an element that shows up in minerals.....it is poison- along with the junk that they use to bottle this garbage in- plastic- in not a healthy vehicle for holding your water----
Arsenic is also a mineral!
Thank you ET for publishing such an informative NEWS
name of brands should also be published.
May Allah Have Mercy on All of us.... If this is the situation with so called "Mineral Water" Bottle companies..... what is the analysis of Tap water that is commonly used by millions of Pakistani people who cannot afford these "Mineral Water"