bottled water demand surges in Pakistan

passage of time, the awareness about the waterborne diseases has risen among the public which became the major cause in boosting the bottled water industry in the country.
Currently, around 69 brands, including some fake and suspicious ones, are being sold in Pakistani markets, local newspaper Daily Times reported.
A large number of people living the cities prefer bottled water due to the poor quality of drinking water supplied by the civic authorities. The Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources (PCRWR) has recently declared that 16 of these 69 brands of bottled water are unsafe. According to sources in Pakistan Standard and Quality Control Authority (PSQCA), bottled water is usually packed in Polyethylene terephthalate (PET), which requires a significant amount of energy and precautions to produce.
Another study showed that a high percentage of bottled water contained in plastic containers was polluted with estrogenic chemicals.
The representatives of anti-bottled water campaigns and organisations, such as Corporate Accountability International, believe that bottled water is no better than tap water, and emphasises the harmful environmental “side effects” of disposable plastic bottles. But the people related to the bottled water industry argued that bottled water carries reduced amounts of copper, lead and other metal contaminants, since it does not run through the plumbing pipes, whereas tap water is exposed to metal corrosion.
Due to contaminated water being widespread, Pakistanis started installing filtration plants for domestic and business purposes in the mid-1990s. — Xinhua.