Why Bottled water?
Millions of people, both in rural and urban India, suffer from inadequate or no tap water supply. Even some parts of Mumbai, the country's financial capital, get a mere two hours of daily water supply. The city's Virar suburb gets 45 minutes. So bottled water is much in demand by residents - even though the businesses profiting from the sales are thriving from access to public water sources.
Bottled water fills a void created by government failure to address basic services, Peter Gleick of the Pacific Institute writes in its World Water report. "In many parts of the world, tap water is not available or safe to drink," writes . "In these regions, the failure of governments to provide basic water services has opened the door to private companies and vendors filling a critical need, albeit at a very high cost to consumers." The institute reasons that governments should tap into spending on commercial water by consumers to secure funds to provide safe water at fraction of the cost.
Bottled water has been treated by distillation, reverse osmosis, or other suitable process and that meets the definition of "purified water". The bottled water treatments include:
* Distillation. In this process, water is turned into a vapor. Since minerals are too heavy to vaporize, they are left behind, and the vapors are condensed into water again.
* Reverse osmosis. Water is forced through membranes to remove minerals in the water.
* Absolute 1 micron filtration. Water flows through filters that remove particles larger than one micron in size, such as "Cryptosporidium", a parasitic protozoan.
* Ozonation. Bottlers of all types of waters typically use ozone gas, an antimicrobial agent, to disinfect the water instead of chlorine, since chlorine can leave residual taste and odor to the water.
Millions of people, both in rural and urban India, suffer from inadequate or no tap water supply. Even some parts of Mumbai, the country's financial capital, get a mere two hours of daily water supply. The city's Virar suburb gets 45 minutes. So bottled water is much in demand by residents - even though the businesses profiting from the sales are thriving from access to public water sources.
Bottled water fills a void created by government failure to address basic services, Peter Gleick of the Pacific Institute writes in its World Water report. "In many parts of the world, tap water is not available or safe to drink," writes . "In these regions, the failure of governments to provide basic water services has opened the door to private companies and vendors filling a critical need, albeit at a very high cost to consumers." The institute reasons that governments should tap into spending on commercial water by consumers to secure funds to provide safe water at fraction of the cost.
Bottled water has been treated by distillation, reverse osmosis, or other suitable process and that meets the definition of "purified water". The bottled water treatments include:
* Distillation. In this process, water is turned into a vapor. Since minerals are too heavy to vaporize, they are left behind, and the vapors are condensed into water again.
* Reverse osmosis. Water is forced through membranes to remove minerals in the water.
* Absolute 1 micron filtration. Water flows through filters that remove particles larger than one micron in size, such as "Cryptosporidium", a parasitic protozoan.
* Ozonation. Bottlers of all types of waters typically use ozone gas, an antimicrobial agent, to disinfect the water instead of chlorine, since chlorine can leave residual taste and odor to the water.
No comments:
Post a Comment