The recent report of Pakistan Standards and Quality Control Authority (PSQCA) declared 9 mineral water brands unsafe to drink. The water brands which actually labelled themselves with mineral water tag are not even safe to drink.
These 9brands of bottled water were declared unsafe to drink in monitoring report of (PSQCA) from July to September issued on Wednesday.
- Plus Piyaas
- 3 Star
- Douro
- Real Plus
- Pure It
- Elayn Plus
- Crystal Maya
- Aqua Saad
- iPure Water
The reason behind stating these companies unsafe for consumption is because they are having chemical and microbiological contamination. PSQCA has evaluated these findings within its permissible limits.
The report states that 118 samples of mineral/bottled water brands have been collected from Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Gujranwala, Peshawar, Multan, Lahore, Bahawalpur, Rahim Yar Khan, Tandojam, Quetta and Karachi.
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According to the report, out of those unsafe brands, ‘Plus Piyaas’ has relatively high levels of Arsenic i.e. 15 ppb exceeding PSQCA’s standard of 10 ppb, that is highly unsafe.
For your information, the extreme level of arsenic can cause lots of skin diseases, diabetes, kidney diseases, hypertension, heart diseases, birth defects, black foot diseases and several types of cancers etc.
On the other hand, three brands including Elayn Plus, Crystal Maya and Aqua Saad were found to be unsafe due to microbiological contamination which can be the reason to create diseases like Cholera, Diarrhea, Dysentery, Hepatitis, Typhoid etc., the report stated.
Pure Water, 3 Star, Douro and Real Plus, these four brands were found unsafe due to the presence of higher levels of Sodium ranging from 60-115 ppm. This level of Sodium is unsafe to drink.
The brand `Pure It’ was found hazardous due to the presence of high levels of Fluoride i.e. 1.8 ppm. Whereas the PSQCA bottled water quality standard for sodium is 50 ppm and for fluoride is 0.7 ppm.
The whole scenario is miserable as the poor quality of drinking water in Pakistan has forced a large segment of citizens to buy bottled water, who can afford the price.
As a consequence, many new companies entered into this business and mineral/bottled water industry witnessed a huge growth in the country during the last few years.
Now, many of the mineral/bottled water companies were found selling contaminated water. What can Pakistanis citizens can do when the bottled water itself is not up to the standard of PSQCA and is unsafe for drinking?
Although, Chief Justice of Pakistan, Justice Saqib Nisar has taken the notice of this issue, and summoned Nestle Water company too when it was found that Nestle has not the required amount of Magnesium that should be in the mineral water. Moreover, the written ingredients on the bottle were not found in the water. Chief Justice declared that people should know that Nestle water bottle is not mineral as well.
