For years, pushing consumers to boycott bottled water, which often travels hundreds of miles of road before coming to us with a ridiculously high price, and to drink "water from the Mayor", which by law must be potable.

Drinking, in fact, but good?

Well often not very good, because the taste of chlorine and residues present in the pipes (which is responsible for maintenance of private or condominium, and is often simply ignored for decades).

Ok, not exactly delicious, but at least is secure. Right?

Well, actually it is within certain limits.

The CERAM, European Centre for Mineral Water Research has published a study which is not to be so quiet.

Some passages sound pretty sinister:

"Analysis of the data obtained can be emphasized that in no case was found to contain indicators of faecal contamination in bottled water that the risk of sanitation in this respect can be considered minimal, if all the normal procedures for minimizing risk in the sector are met.
Another situation instead appeared from the analysis on AP (Drinking Water) where 24.83% of the sample shows signs of fecal contamination.

In particular there is 5.56% of the samples in the presence of Escherichia coli, 18.52% in the presence of total coliforms, 2.00% in the presence of Pseudomonas aeruginosa, in 15.09% of Aeromonas hydrophila and in 11 , 11% of Enterococcus faecalis, and this is probably relatable to domestic emergencies or poor maintenance of storage tanks, where it is possible the presence of indicators of contamination in conjunction with a limited concentration, if any, free residual chlorine. "

And the use of chlorine as a disinfectant:

"It 's worth noting that recently the scientific community's attention turned to the complex system of water disinfection practices condottate and their possible consequences on human health. The procedure adopted is the most chlorination in the form of sodium hypochlorite followed by chlorine dioxide, but also the use of chlorine gas (Cl2) is quite widespread, while, ozone is used primarily for water purification of surface water with the role of primary oxidant.

The use of chlorine, in all its forms, in order to control the microbial load, is accepted by all health authorities, or rather imposed by past standards (DPR 236/88) and recommended by those currently in force in Italy (d. lgs. 31/01). It is also used successfully to ensure disinfection of the water downstream of the process.

However, despite its great utility, chlorination gives rise to a series of by-products which are formed during the disinfection treatment as a result of the reaction between the substances present in the water (organic matter, bacterial and / or pathogenic organisms) and additives .

These compounds are generally referred to as DBP (disinfection of water) including trihalomethanes are the most popular. The danger to human health of newly formed compounds is the subject of numerous epidemiological studies and scientific research but the responses to stress health are often contradictory. "

The conclusions:

"The study examines the quality of water emerging from the taps of homes (AP) of 50 cities in 17 Italian regions and the quality of bottled mineral waters (AM) PET relative to 24 different brands.
The results obtained indicate critical elements for valence sanitation in AP, especially due to the presence of anthropogenic contaminants, chemical (trihalomethanes and halogenated organo) and microbiological contamination.

With regard to the microbiological aspects, the 24.83% of the samples shows signs of faecal contamination "

The report is available in pdf here .

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Tags: water , pollution , water saving

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