What microbes could survive in bottled water?

Hi

For our HACCP plan for bottled water I am trying to determine if microorganisms that could cause deaths could be present after chlorination. The ones particularly being considered are coliforms, E coli and pseudomonas aerugenosa. It is quite difficult to search the literature as every search for 'E coli bottled water' turns up results for outbreaks recommending that it is safest to drink bottled water!

If anyone can advise (or even direct to studies or articles) where these organisms have been detected in bottled water it would be much appreciated.

Kind regards

Chobbsy

It is not that usual that bottled water for sale would undergo chlorination in this part of the world. It would be generally unacceptable from the consumers point of view and under packaged water legislation prohibited. In any event you would not expect many microorganisms to survive chlorination at certain levels. I'm not aware of any specific studies or articles but you should do a good search of the articles. I understand that cryptosporidium can be resistant to high levels of chlorine and I know studies have been conducted and should be available in most searches.

Post chlorination contamination might be an issue and would depend on whether you have a de-chlorination step or simply leave it there to breakdown. My apologies but my experience in water bottling has not encountered a bottler using chlorine as a lethal step so my knowledge is limited on this.

George

I found this that might get you moving in the right direction. It's an FDA reported voluntary recall for bottled water, appears to be some sort of mold issue (I'd surmise there was a failure in their sanitation and mold was found during the bottling process). http://www.fda.gov/S...s/ucm254580.htm I used MSN search for "food safety bottled water" which then lead me to try searching "FDA recall bottled water." Might help narrow your research.

One thing with your HACCP comment above, I don't think you should be focusing only on organisms that could cause death. Anything that gets your customers sick is a problem that needs to be addressed.

Hi

For our HACCP plan for bottled water I am trying to determine if microorganisms that could cause deaths could be present after chlorination. The ones particularly being considered are coliforms, E coli and pseudomonas aerugenosa. It is quite difficult to search the literature as every search for 'E coli bottled water' turns up results for outbreaks recommending that it is safest to drink bottled water!

If anyone can advise (or even direct to studies or articles) where these organisms have been detected in bottled water it would be much appreciated.

Kind regards

I certainly don't recall seeing many deaths specifically ascribed to "coliforms" although the group is quite difficult to totally eradicate. Or generic E.coli for that matter. P. aerugenosa no idea, seems rather more specialised.

Rgds / Charles.C

http://www.unilorin....s/olayemi/6.pdf Here a link to a paper about coliform recovery in chlorinated and dechlorinated water.


From my own experience, I have had seen water treatment systems fouled with coliform but not E.coli from portable water thats has been cchlorinated. It is always important when testing for coiform and E. coli to neutralize possible chlorine present with a 10% w/v of sodium thiosulfate. (1 ml of the solution in 99 mL of sample).

Typically coliforms, E.coli and Pseudomanas aeruginosa causes illness but very young, very old and inmmnocomprised individuals may die from infection.


A habit of mine is to monitor incoming water suppleyfor chlorine.When a spike occurs it may indicate that the water authority got a coliform hit

Dear Chobbsy,

Have to say that my (consumer) experience has been the same as George's. My experience with analyses of samples has been uniformly one of nil detection (MPN) for coliform / E.coli as IMO would be expected; and similar, or very low, plate counts.

Normally, i would guess that a process for bottled water is regulatory required to validatably achieve specific micro. specifications and that the appropriate operational requirements are fairly well-specified and available.

Or do you have some particular concern that yr process is not adequate ??

Rgds / Charles.C

I too have never heard of chlorination of bottled water - seems to fly in the face of why most people buy it!!?

Although in the UK it would not be permitted in bottled 'Natural Mineral Water', the preferred disinfection method would be filtration followed by UV light disinfection.

Chlorination is the usual method used for disinfecting drinking water.In case of bottled water the chlorinated water being chlorination by passing through ACF.The process is also followed by micro filtration, UV treatment and reverse osmosis.If our cleaning and sanitation of these stages fails there will be chances to detect microorganisms in our bottled water, usually Pseudomonas can be detected.But with my experience ozonisation in the final stage, just before bottling can kill and eliminate all the forms of microorganisms in final product.....And the product must be retained in the warehouse for 24 hours before delivery....

Thanks all for your insights on this topic

Not sure where you are based or how you are labelling your water, but in the UK, if you use the term 'mineral' any form of disinfection - chlorination, UV or filtration is pretty much prohibited.

If you are just calling it 'bottled water' you have more options, most discussed earlier in the thread.

Continuing George's point, the protozoans cryptosporidium and giardia are both chlorine resistant and the normal technique is to use a filter (I think the normal size is 1 micron from memory, the organisms and cysts may be ~4 microns)

You need to look at your water source and storage systems in your HACCP, surface waters are more likely to contain the protozoans and poorly sited buffer storage tanks make it worse.