ISLAMABAD: While bottled/mineral water can indeed be safe, this isn’t always the case. This is why the Pakistan Standards and Quality Control Authority (PSQCA) encourages consumers to buy bottled water that carries its logo on the labels.

“Bottled water brands that carry the logo get the scrutiny consumers’ expect. We ensure bottled water that consumers are paying for conforms to all parameters prescribed in the standards set by the government and are free from chemical and bacteriological, organic contaminants,” said Incharge PSQCA Islamabad Directorate Abdul Ghaffar Khan Niazi.

The official urged consumers to scan the label for chemical ingredients such as nitrate, chloride, sulphate, potassium, sodium, magnesium, calcium and chlorine, elements/compounds necessary for the human body and without which water would be undrinkable. These are naturally occurring compounds in water, he said.

He said since bottlers of water demineralise natural water and add these compounds artificially, PSQCA steps in to ensure that standards are met.

“Since these are artificially added, the amount of all these total dissolved solids (TDS) cannot exceed 500ppm (parts per million). For example, a water bottle should not have more than 50ppm sodium or sulphate more than 250ppm or the Ph levels should be between 6.5 and 8.5 to fall within safe parameters for human consumption,” he said.

According to PSQCA, excess of these elements can be hazardous to human health. Excess sodium becomes carcinogenic and more sulphate can cause dehydration.

PSQCA ensures bottled water conforms to parameters prescribed in standards set by govt, says official

The monitoring body maintains that this is not to say consumers should worry that every bottle of water they drink is contaminated. “Rather, a better understanding of how the industry works is important for public health,” Mr Niazi said, adding: ‘“PSQCA also requires bottlers to use food grade plastic and certificate to prove it.”

PSQCA under the Ministry of Science and Technology was established in 1996 to provide services for standardisation and third-party conformity assessment of products. To help ensure that the 130-plus licenced bottled water brands sold in the twin cities, its sister organisation, Pakistan Council for Research in Water Resources (PCRWR), carries out independent monitoring of bottle water brands across the country.

PCRWR brings out a report quarterly, warning consumers of safe and unsafe water bottle brands. The report is sent to the chief secretaries of all provinces for legal action if necessary.

In its recent report, PCRWR found higher levels of arsenic and microbiological contamination in more than a dozen water bottle brands out of 100 randomly collected samples from across the country.

While arsenic contamination is more of a worry in central Punjab and Sindh, microbiological contamination in bottled water is a concern in the twin cities. This could also occur if bottlers do not have hygienic business practices and do not maintain cleanliness of their plants. Such bottlers are asked to halt their production until there is zero contamination in their products.

However, a lot has changed since 2005 when PCRWR was mandated to keep a watchful eye on bottled water companies.

“About 40 to 50 per cent bottled water samples collected randomly used to be unsafe in the beginning. After 2009-10, this percentage has dropped to roughly 15. Today bottlers of water approach PCRWR and want their product tested and the consumers are also more aware. The standards developed by PCRWR follow universal guidelines from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and are strictly enforced,” said Saiqa Imran, senior research officer at PCRWR.

At a minimum, bottlers of water want to make sure that their brands are not affected by a loss of reputation, she said, adding: “But there are numerous bottled-water brands, and some lesser-known bottlers working on tiny profit margins that may not share the concern of the most recognisable ones. They don’t have to worry about public confidence in their brand names and can stop using one label and start selling under another without changing the source. And these are the brands that we watch out for most and make sure that they do not make it to the markets.”

Action against such brands or unlicensed companies fall under the mandate of provincial governments, she said.

Published in Dawn, February 6th, 2021