Abstract:
Most of the common diseases observed in developing countries are due to drinking
contaminated water. Clean and safe drinking water is essential for human life. It is
generally considered that bottled and jar water is safe for human consumption. The
present study was conducted to know whether the bottled and jar water sold in the
Chattogram City Corporation area is safe for public health. To fulfil the objective,
twenty (20) drinking jar water samples were collected from ten different populated
spots, which are supplied by the local small water purification plants. Samples of ten
(10) different brands of bottled water were also collected from the retail grocery store.
Some physico-chemical properties, like pH, total dissolved solid (TDS), electrical
conductivity (EC) and the concentration of seven heavy metals (Cd, Cr, Cu, Fe, Mn, Pb
and Zn), were determined. Microbial content including total bacteria count (TBC) and
total coliform count (TCC) were also evaluated. The pH value of jar and bottled water
samples were within the WHO, EC, USEPA, BSTI and BIS acceptable limits. The TDS
values were found to be very low in most samples, proving that the supplied drinking
water did not conform to the taste standards. Only two jar water samples exceeded the
electrical conductivity limit. This result confirms that the tested samples contain the
required minerals for drinking water. The average TDS and EC values of jar water
samples were higher than those of bottled water, which indicates lower mineral content
in bottled water. To assess the heavy metal content in drinking water, seven heavy
metals in tested bottle and jar water samples were investigated. Among all seven heavy
metals, only copper (Cu) was detected in all jar and bottled water samples which was
below the WHO, EC, USEPA, BSTI and BIS recommended value. The heavy metal,
manganese (Mn) was detected in three jar water samples, while iron (Fe) was found
only in one, which were much below the acceptable limit recommended by WHO, EC,
USEPA, BSTI and BIS. In the context of microbial contamination, 40% of total jar
water samples and 33.3% of bottled water samples were found contaminated by
pathogenic micro-organisms in terms of total bacteria count, while no coliform bacteria
were detected in any tested sample. This microbial data is giving us a worrying signal
about drinking jars and bottled water marketed in Chattogram city.
