Abstract:
Bottle water is a great beverage choice for hydration and refreshment because it's consistent
quality, safety, and convenience. Quality of safe drinking water refers to physicochemical and
microbiological parameters that meet the WHO (World Health Organization) guidelines of
national standards. Therefore, this study was aimed to evaluate the quality of selected bottled
drinking water samples available in Jaffna District, Sri Lanka. Randomly selected ten different
brands of bottled drinking water samples were collected from bottled drinking water selling
shops. For the quality analysis, water samples from two batches were tested for physiochemical
(pH, Electrical conductivity, Total Dissolved Solids, Total Suspended solids, Turbidity, Color,
Odor, Taste, iron, Nitrate, Nitrite, Sodium, Potassium, Total Hardness, Magnesium, Calcium,
Alkalinity, and Chloride) and Microbiological (Total bacterial Count) parameters. The results of
the above samples were compared with the SLS (Sri Lankan Standards) recommended level to
ensure the quality of the drinking water samples. All samples’ pH values varied between the
ranges of 6.9 - 9.61, whereas electrical conductivity values varied between 12.58 - 202.58 µS/cm
and total alkalinity and turbidity values varied between the ranges of 93.33 - 203.33 mg/L and
0.215 - 0.321 NTU, respectively. Further, total dissolved solids, sodium, total suspended solids,
potassium, iron, hardness, magnesium, chloride, and calcium content of all studied water
samples were 2.491 – 99.678 mg/L, 0.5 – 17.25 ppm, 0 mg/L, 0.270 – 1.50 mg/L, and 0 - 0.681
mg/L, 5.01 – 10.73 mg/L, 1.1-2.06 mg/L, 37.86 – 62.71 mg/L, and 1.96 – 17.79 mg/L,
respectively. Moreover, nitrite and nitrate values for water samples varied between 0 to 0.0038
mg/L and 0.683 to 2.983 mg/L, respectively. All studied water samples were colourless,
tasteless, and odourless for organoleptic analysis. Total microbial count varied between 0 and
13 CFU. According to the results, it is obvious that bottled drinking water has good quality for
the selected samples. Among all samples studied for the physicochemical parameters, obtained
value for bottled drinking water showed less than SLS permitted level. However, in the case of
microbial quality, some samples were showed colonies for both batches. Therefore, this study
concluded that proper sanitation practices need to be followed in respective bottled water
producing industries to ensure safe drinking water for all.
