A regulatory framework for bottled water quality monitoring: A case of Emfuleni local municipality

Background

The quality of drinking water has recently become of utmost concern to consumers worldwide, especially in areas where Water Service Authorities (WSAs) failed to provide safe water. To combat this challenge, government entities regulate water to ensure that safe water is provided. The Emfuleni Local Municipality (ELM) has experienced cases of water contamination by human excretion, whereby communities were affected. As a result, there was a sharp increase in bottled water (BW) use, which however gave rise to unregulated and counterfeit versions of popular brands. This situation poses threats to public health.

Aim

This study sought to determine the regulation of drinking water and to assess whether environmental health practitioners (EHPs) monitor the quality of water sources (BW and tap water) in ELM as outlined by the National Environmental Health Norms and Standards (NEHNS).

Settings

The study was conducted in the Emfuleni Local Municipality in South Africa.

Methods

A quantitative cross-sectional study design was employed in this research. Fifteen online questionnaires using a Google Forms survey were distributed amongst all EHPs servicing ELM. Secondary data that included the Integrated Development Plan (IDP) and Service Delivery Budget Implentation Plan (SDBIP) for the 2017-2020 financial years were also evaluated, specifically for water quality monitoring (tap and bottled water). The dataset was analysed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 29.

Results

Due to complexity in the legislation and NEHNS in relation to Municipal Health Services (MHS), bottled water was not sampled at all. A number of EHPs were also not conversant with the regulations governing BW. Moreover, NEHNS consider bottled water as food, which does not fall under the MHS.

Conclusion

There should be clarity in the legislation to ensure that bottled water monitoring is intensified to protect public health within the WSAs.

Contribution

The findings of this study could assist policy-makers to make informed decisions on water quality monitoring, as well as clarify legislative issues on bottled water.

MAD Water: Integrating Modular, Adaptive, and Decentralized Approaches for Water Security in the Climate Change Era

Centralized water infrastructure has, over the last century, brought safe and reliable drinking water to much of the world. But climate change, combined with aging and underfunding, is increasingly testing the limits of-and reversing gains made by-these large-scale water systems. To address these growing strains and gaps, we must assess and advance alternatives to centralized water provision and sanitation. The water literature is rife with examples of systems that are neither centralized nor networked, but still meet water needs of local communities in important ways, including: informal and hybrid water systems, decentralized water provision, community-based water management, small drinking water systems, point-of-use treatment, small-scale water vendors, and packaged water. Our work builds on these literatures by proposing a convergence approach that can integrate and explore the benefits and challenges of modular, adaptive, and decentralized ("MAD") water provision and sanitation, often foregrounding important advances in engineering technology. We further provide frameworks to evaluate justice, economic feasibility, governance, human health, and environmental sustainability as key parameters of MAD water system performance.

Evaluating the potability and human health risk of sachet water in Wukari, Nigeria

This study assessed physiochemical and biological properties of sachet waters. In general, sachet waters were within standards for all parameters except lead in batch A & B, iron in batch E, and E. coli in all water brands. Human health risk showed the order of THI as NO₃^- > Pb > F^- > Fe for batch A & B samples and NO₃^- > F^- > Pb > Fe for batch C, D & E. This showed nitrate constituting over 50% of the THI while batch B water samples showed THI above the acceptable limit for all age groups. The THI for infants suggests moderate risk. This indicates infants are more likely to be impacted even though water parameters were within standards. Hence, there is a need to monitor sachet water companies to protect public health.

Sachet water in Ghana: A spatiotemporal analysis of the recent upward trend in consumption and its relationship with changing household characteristics, 2010-2017

The consumption of packaged water in Ghana has grown significantly in recent years. By 2017, "sachet water"-machine-sealed 500ml plastic bags of drinking water-was consumed by 33% of Ghanaian households. Reliance on sachet water has previously been associated with the urban poor, yet recent evidence suggests a customer base which crosses socioeconomic lines. Here, we conduct a repeated cross-sectional analysis of three nationally representative datasets to examine the changing demography of sachet water consumers between 2010 and 2017. Our results show that over the course of the study period sachet water has become a ubiquitous source of drinking water in Ghana, with relatively wealthy households notably increasing their consumption. In 2017, the majority of sachet water drinking households had access to another improved water source. The current rate and form of urbanisation, inadequate water governance, and an emphasis on cost recovery pose significant challenges for the expansion of the piped water supply network, leading us to conclude that sachet water will likely continue to be a prominent source of drinking water in Ghana for the foreseeable future. The main challenge for policymakers is to ensure that the growing sachet water market enhances rather than undermines Ghana's efforts towards achieving universal and equitable access to clean drinking water and sanitation.

Sachet water quality and Vendors’ practices in Damongo, northern Ghana during the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 using multivariate statistics, water quality and pollution indices, and panel assessment

The emergence of the SARS-CoV-2 has affected several production services including the water production and delivery processes. This study considered sachet water quality during the advent of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic using multivariate statistics and Water Quality Index, Water Pollution Index and, hygienic and sanitation practices of sixty-two (62) sachet water vendors using a panel assessment approach. The findings showed that vendors did not adhere to proper hygienic practices as ninety-four (94%) of them did not have health clearance, ninety (90%) did not frequently wash their receptacles for selling daily, and most of them stored and sold in unhygienic environments. Majority of the producers violated Food and Drugs Authority Regulations. The Empirical Orthogonal Function analysis showed that total iron, Total Heterotrophic Bacteria, Salmonella, Cl⁻, E. coli, and fecal and total coliforms were the controlling elements in the water. All the brands were below threshold limits based on the physical water assessment. However, enteric bacteria were observed in all the brands. Water Quality and Water Pollution Indices (WQI and WPI) described all the sachet water brands (vendors and production sites) as excellent for drinking. The WQI computations for samples from the production and vending sites respectively ranged from 0.12 to 0.36 and 0.27–0.42 whereas WPI presented 0.22–0.31 and 0.23–0.32. Comparatively, samples from vendors had elevated elemental concentrations and loads. This suggests that besides sachet water contamination during production and transportation, vendors significantly impacted the quality of sachet water. Sensitization on proper hygienic practices for sachet water production and vending and routine assessment of the quality of sachet water produced or sold is recommended.

Groundwater as a Source of Drinking Water in Southeast Asia and the Pacific: A Multi-Country Review of Current Reliance and Resource Concerns

Groundwater is widely acknowledged to be an important source of drinking water in low-income regions, and it, therefore, plays a critical role in the realization of the human right to water. However, the proportion of households using groundwater compared with other sources is rarely quantified, with national and global datasets more focused on facilities—rather than resources—used. This is a significant gap in knowledge, particularly in light of efforts to expand water services in line with the inclusive and integrated agenda of the Sustainable Development Goals. Understanding the prevalence of groundwater reliance for drinking is critical for those involved in water services planning and management, so they can better monitor and advocate for management of water resources that supports sustainable services for households. This paper contributes data that can be used to strengthen the integration of resource considerations within water service delivery and inform the work of development partners supporting this area. We approach this issue from two perspectives. Firstly, we collate data on the proportion of households using groundwater as their primary drinking water source for 10 Southeast Asian and Pacific nations, finding an average of 66% (range of 17–93% for individual countries) of households in urban areas and 60% (range of 22–95%) of households in rural areas rely on groundwater for drinking. Together, these constitute 79% of the total population across the case study countries. Secondly, we review current and emerging groundwater resource concerns within each country, using a systems thinking approach to assess how groundwater resource issues influence household water services. Findings support the case for governments and development agencies to strengthen engagement with groundwater resource management as foundational for achieving sustainable water services for all.

(Re)theorizing the Politics of Bottled Water: Water Insecurity in the Context of Weak Regulatory Regimes

Water insecurity in developing country contexts has frequently led individuals and entire communities to shift their consumptive patterns towards bottled water. Bottled water is sometimes touted as a mechanism to enact the human right to water through distribution across drought-stricken or infrastructure-compromised communities. However, the global bottled water industry is a multi-billion dollar major business. How did we reach a point where the commodification of a human right became not only commonly accepted but even promoted? In this paper, I argue that a discussion of the politics of bottled water necessitates a re-theorization of what constitutes “the political” and how politics affects policy decisions regarding the governance of bottled water. In this article I examine bottled water as a political phenomenon that occurs not in a vacuum but in a poorly regulated context. I explore the role of weakened regulatory regimes and regulatory capture in the emergence, consolidation and, ultimately, supremacy of bottled water over network-distributed, delivered-by-a-public utility tap water. My argument uses a combined framework that interweaves notions of “the political”, ideas on regulatory capture, the concept of “the public”, branding, and regulation theory to retheorize how we conceptualize the politics of bottled water.

Towards A Situated Urban Political Ecology Analysis of Packaged Drinking Water Supply

The inclusion of packaged drinking water (PDW) as a potentially improved source of safe drinking water under Goal 6.1 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) reflects its growing significance in cities where piped water has never been universal or safe for drinking. Using the case of PDW in Jakarta, Indonesia, we call for theorizing the politics of PDW through a situated Urban Political Ecology (UPE) analysis of the wider urban water distributions in which it is inserted. We do so in order to interrogate the unevenness of individual “choices” for securing safe drinking water, and highlight the ambiguity of PDW’s impact on inequalities in access. We first review research on PDW supply to specify how dominant theoretical approaches used for understanding PDW supply through analyses of the individual making “choices” for drinking water are power neutral, and why this matters for achieving equitable water access. We illustrate these points through a case study of PDW consumption by low income residents in Jakarta, and then identify how a situated UPE framework can help attend to the uneven societal relations shaping different socio-material conditions, within which individual “choices” for PDW are made. For Jakarta, connecting choices of the individual to power relations shaping geographies of urban water access and risk explains the rise in PDW consumption by low income residents as a situated response to the uneven exposure of poorer residents to environmental hazards. We conclude with reflections on how this can inform interventions towards more just distributions of safe drinking water.

The role of packaged water in meeting global targets on improved water access

Packaged water (as either refill, bottled, or sachet water) has become an important element of water security in many low- and middle-income countries, owing to poor reliability and lack of piped water infrastructure. However, over time and across countries, the Demographic and Health Surveys monitoring program has inconsistently classified packaged water components as either improved or unimproved. Using data collected as part of the Performance Monitoring and Accountability 2020 (PMA2020) surveys on water options in nine study geographies across eight countries, we identified five geographies where packaged water constituted one of several options for 5% or more of users. In this study, four scenarios were designed in which packaged water components were variously classified as either improved or unimproved. Unimproved water use was highest in scenarios where sachet or refill water was classified as an unimproved source. Across the four scenarios, the difference in the use of unimproved water as the main option was highest (65%) in Nigeria (Lagos). That difference increased to 78% when considering all regular options. The development of these scenarios highlights the importance of classifying a source as improved or unimproved in the overall metric that indicates progress at national and international levels.

Water bags as a potential vehicle for transmitting disease in a West African capital, Bissau

BACKGROUND

Street vendors of chilled packaged water have an increasing role in meeting the drinking water demand of people on the move in developing nations. Hygienic conditions can be questionable, and water quality screening scarce or non-existent.

METHODS

In order to ascertain the quality of the packaged water sold by street vendors in Bissau, the capital of the Western African country Guinea-Bissau, water bags were screened in 2011 and during the 2012 cholera outbreak for key physical, chemical and microbiological parameters.

RESULTS

Water used to fill the hand-filled hand-tied bags originated from communal tap water and melted ice. All samples (n=36) were microbiologically contaminated, although levels showed a pronounced variability (e.g. 7-493 372 cfu 250 ml(-1) for Escherichia coli). In 2012, the fecal contamination levels increased (p<0.05), and Vibrio cholerae was detected in all water bags obtained from the neighborhood where the outbreak started.

CONCLUSION

Findings showed that all packaged water samples were unfit for human consumption and during the 2012 cholera outbreak represented a potential vehicle for the spread of the disease. The design of measures to decrease the risk associated to the consumption of highly contaminated chilled water is clearly required.

Sachet water quality and brand reputation in two low-income urban communities in greater Accra, Ghana

Sachet water has become an important primary source of drinking water in western Africa, but little is known about bacteriologic quality and improvements to quality control given the recent, rapid evolution of this industry. This report examines basic bacteriologic indicators for 60 sachet water samples from two very low-income communities in Accra, Ghana, and explores the relationship between local perceptions of brand quality and bacteriologic quality after controlling for characteristics of the vending environment. No fecal contamination was detected in any sample, and 82% of total heterotrophic bacteria counts were below the recommended limit for packaged water. Sachets from brands with a positive reputation for quality were 90% less likely to present any level of total heterotrophic bacteria after controlling for confounding factors. These results contrast with much of the recent sachet water quality literature and may indicate substantial progress in sachet water regulation and quality control.

Drinking Water in Transition: A Multilevel Cross-sectional Analysis of Sachet Water Consumption in Accra

Rapid population growth in developing cities often outpaces improvements to drinking water supplies, and sub-Saharan Africa as a region has the highest percentage of urban population without piped water access, a figure that continues to grow. Accra, Ghana, implements a rationing system to distribute limited piped water resources within the city, and privately-vended sachet water–sealed single-use plastic sleeves–has filled an important gap in urban drinking water security. This study utilizes household survey data from 2,814 Ghanaian women to analyze the sociodemographic characteristics of those who resort to sachet water as their primary drinking water source. In multilevel analysis, sachet use is statistically significantly associated with lower overall self-reported health, younger age, and living in a lower-class enumeration area. Sachet use is marginally associated with more days of neighborhood water rationing, and significantly associated with the proportion of vegetated land cover. Cross-level interactions between rationing and proxies for poverty are not associated with sachet consumption after adjusting for individual-level sociodemographic, socioeconomic, health, and environmental factors. These findings are generally consistent with two other recent analyses of sachet water in Accra and may indicate a recent transition of sachet consumption from higher to lower socioeconomic classes. Overall, the allure of sachet water displays substantial heterogeneity in Accra and will be an important consideration in planning for future drinking water demand throughout West Africa.