Bottled water test parameters
Good day everyone,
I was wondering if anyone could tell me what parameters should be tested in house for bottled water? If you can give a reason for the test, that would be super helpful as well. At our company, we are testing the following in house on an hourly basis whenever there is a production run.
- conductivity
- total dissolved solids
- dissolved oxygen --- I haven't found a use for this value but it was a test requested by a previous QA manager, so we just keep testing it...
- chlorine levels
- Microbiology: HPC, coliform, e.coli, pseudomonas aeruginosa, Yeast & mould
- sensory: taste/smell test
Thank you in advance!
Hi vicky,
It rather depends to what level of rigor you want to check, and why.
Don't know about Canada but the official EC list for drinking water runs to ca.50-100 items (especially chemical) from memory. No way a routine in-house lab could even attempt most of the items without stuff like AA, HLPC, and MS. Or perhaps you have a benevolent patron ?
On the other hand, i seem to recall seing an FDA list of only 10-20 items, but still with all the heavy metals.
Many people choose to drink Bottled water instead of tap water, because clever marketing over the years has told us that it's better. The truth is, most bottled water is nothing more than filtered tap. National taste tests have indicated that few people can tell a difference between bottled and tap water. Several bottling companies have admitted that their product is municipally sourced. There are, however, a few differences between bottled and filtered tap water.
Bottled Water is Bad for the Environment
It is estimated that less than one third of plastic water bottles are recycled each year. That leaves over 60 percent to pollute our landfills. Moreover, producing and transporting this product is wasteful. For every bottle of water produced, three are wasted, and hundreds of thousands of gallons of fuel are used to transport bottled water across the world. Filtered tap, on the other hand, leaves behind very little, if any plastic waste and is a better choice for environmental preservation.
Bottled Water is More Expensive
Millions of dollars go into the production and transport of plastic bottles all over the world. Since single-use plastic bottles aren't meant to be reused, consumers have to pay money for each and every bottle of water they consume. The expense adds up over time. Filtered water, however, is available at a fraction of the cost and may be poured into reusable stainless steel water bottles over and over, saving consumers the money that would have otherwise been spent on single-use containers. In short, bottled water is generally more expensive than filtered tap in the long run. Although water filters cost money, and will need to be replaced periodically, the overall expense is much less than that of bottled water.
3-year old thread.
No mention of Safety.