THE DILEMMA ABOUT THE PRICE OF BOTTLED DRINKING WATER IN BANGLADESH

An average American drinks 91 liters (24 gallons) of bottled water per year, making it second only to carbonated soft drinks in popularity. Globally, bottled water is a $46 billion industry. It is well documented that most bottled water is primarily derived from municipal water supplies and is safe to drink. Although this water is sometimes filtered and additional minerals are added to it, there is no health or nutritional benefit to drinking bottled water over tap water.

However, this is not the case in many under-developed countries for the water that is available from public water supply systems. Often, these water sources contain many harmful bacteria and other contaminants due to faulty water distribution systems. In these countries, people rely on bottled water for drinking, assuming it is safe in terms of water quality. Affordability of the bottled water is an issue in these countries. For example, the cost of a one liter of bottled water in Bangladesh ranges from US $0.01 to $7. The purposes of this research was to evaluate the quality of bottled drinking water by performing chemical and biochemical analyses. Twenty five samples of bottled water of different price ranges were collected in Bangladesh. These samples were analyzed for selected heavy metals and coliform bacteria. The Flame Atomic Absorption Spectrometer (FAAS) was used for heavy metal analysis and a procedure adapted from the HACH Company (method 8074) was used for coliform count. None of the samples were found to contain heavy metals. However, nineteen samples out of twenty five tested positive for coliform bacteria. In fact, most of the samples had so many colonies that they were difficult to count. Two of the samples were identified to have E.coli colonies, one of the worst forms of coliform. Surprisingly, there was very little correlation between the price of the water and the bacterial contamination level. Brand named bottled water, water used in hospitals, restaurants and public and private office buildings showed similar levels of bacterial contamination. These findings highlight a significant problem with the water quality issues for commercially available water, as well as the economics of water and how it can be used for exploitation and financial gain. A comprehensive measure involving all of the stakeholders needs to be taken to control this problem.